


FHNK: Freshman Year- September

by TheCopperDragonBard



Series: FHNK: Freshman Year [1]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Will add more as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCopperDragonBard/pseuds/TheCopperDragonBard
Summary: Twenty-six years after the fall of Kalvaxus and the Nightmare King, we follow the lives of five new students of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy- specifically, in their first month of school, and all of the madness that that will entail.This takes place after Fantasy High and Sophomores Start, and shall deviate from any future canon that may contradict the events of the story.
Relationships: Gorthalax the Insatiable/Sklonda Gukgak, OC/OC
Series: FHNK: Freshman Year [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1784200
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue

_In the world of Spyre, where mighty dragons clash with equally-mighty adventurers, with treasures in every musty, long-forgotten tomb and ancient mysteries and secrets, both mundane and magical, are waiting to be discovered by the unwary… we instead come to Elmville, a (surprisingly large) small town in the nation of Solace, hometown of both the Aguefort Adventuring Academy and the esteemed party of heroes known as “The Bad Kids”._

_It was in this town twenty-six years before that the dreaded Emperor of the Red Waste, the powerful red dragon Kalvaxus, was at long last slain in a plot to return to power… and killed by a bunch of teenagers, no less, albeit with the help of what can only be described as literal divine intervention. This would hardly be the end of the Bad Kids’ exploits, however; they would travel across the world itself in a multitude of heroic quests- including the alleged destruction of Kalvaxus’ lieutenant, the Nightmare King- and as they did so, word quickly spread of their extraordinary deeds, and in time, they became renowned throughout the world as the capable heroes that they were. While they all would go on to do their own things, they’ve never forgotten about each other, and they were never forgotten by the world._

_Needless to say, the Aguefort Academy’s connection to these idolized figures granted it quite a bit of positive publicity beyond what it had already possessed, and people began flocking to Elmville so they too could train their minds and bodies towards the end of making a living as semi-sociopathic killers, driven largely by the pursuit of wealth, glory, or bloodshed._

_But enough on that- it is time to introduce some of the newest additions to this esteemed school, on the first day of the trimester. We start with a young_ _woman with a penchant for the arts, an aspiring eladrin musician and actress named Adrie Primrose who is currently doing some last-minute reciting for the upcoming school play..._

* * *

**Adrie Primrose**

Race: Eladrin

Sex: Female 

Height: 4’ 11’’ 

Eye Color: Sky blue

Hypothetical Voice Actress: Noel Wells

* * *

 _“I am the very model of a Modern-Major General, I’ve information vegetable, animal and mineral, I know the kings of Solace, and I quote the fights historical, from…_ shit, I _cannot_ quote the fights historical…”

Adrie Primrose lowered her paper of hand-written lyrics in one hand, and brought the other to her face in exasperation. She was currently in the restroom, facing her mirror, and as she looked back up at herself she could see that her skin and hair had turned golden and her eyes a solid blue, both radiating with heat and mildly glowing in frustration. Remembering herself, she forced herself to take a deep breath and willed herself to calm down, ultimately succeeding as the glowing and heat died off, her skin and hair changing back to a golden auburn color and the blue of her eyes retracting back into the irises.

“I mean, seriously, _why_ is it that important for this guy to know? He’s a military leader, not a college professor…” 

She lowered her paper and looked herself over again; she was currently wearing a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a featureless red shirt with short sleeves, with her hair running down and hovering just over her shoulders- a perfect look for the early fall, where the weather was still warm enough to wear such clothing. Noticing the still-irritated look on her face, she quickly took a deep breath and flashed herself a reassuring smile, clenching her right hand and raising her arm up to the point of visibility in a pose meant to embolden herself. Veins of bright green began spiderwebbing across her skin as she did so.

_‘It’s not a problem… that one was always a difficult one for me, between the tongue-twisting and the memorization. Odds are, my audition won’t be based off of that. I’m still good to go on everything else.’_

There was a knock at the door.

“Adrie? Are you almost done in there? You’ll need to leave for school soon.”

“I know! I’ll be out in a second!”

Quickly folding up her paper and shoving it into her pocket, she turned towards the door, unlocked it, and opened it up to be greeted by her mother.

* * *

**Skyla Primrose**

Race: Dryad

Sex: Female

Height: 5’10’’

Eye Color: Gold

Hypothetical Voice Actress: Elsie Lovelock

* * *

Skyla Primrose was currently dressed in a pair of camouflage army pants and, much like her daughter, and a red shirt, although hers was made of rougher, coarser fabric in comparison, made more for practicality than comfort. Her skin and hair was a light copper color, similar to her daughter, although her hair was cut so it only went a little past her ears. Her golden irises glinted with the sunlight shining into the hallway, with a tender smile on her face as Adrie looked up at her.

“We’re going to be heading out in a few minutes- Sora’s already left for work, and I need to get to the border and meet up with Sandra Lynn as soon as I can, so you had better go grab everything else you need.”

Merely nodding as Skyla stepped out of the way and began heading back downstairs herself, Adrie turned and quickly ran into her room, opening the door to be bombarded by movie and musician posters hanging from every wall, with a bed pushed into the upper left corner of the room, a set of bagpipes on the nightstand, and an acoustic guitar and backpack on the bed. Quickly bounding over, she one over one shoulder and one over the other, before walking over to her nightstand and plucking her guitar pick from it’s spot right beside the bagpipes.

Sprinting out of her room and down the stairs, passing the piano in the living room as she did so, she quickly grabbed a couple of bananas from the counter and opened her front door, skipping happily over to their car in the driveway, with the dryad already at the wheel and the fire elemental in the engine screeching sharply. Adrie, sparing not even a second, entered the car and put her guitar and backpack at her feet, deftly clicking her seatbelt into place immediately afterwards as they began to drive to school.

Adrie immediately presented one of the bananas to Skyla. “Banana?”

“No, thank you. I already ate earlier this morning. Help yourself.”

Pulling her arm back and shoving her guitar pick into one of her pockets, Adrie began peeling away at one of the fruits as Skyla turned up the radio station. 

_“In other news, it’s been three months since the capture and escape of the notorious kidnapper, serial killer and vampire Belinda Cozbi. Responsible for the deaths of nine and the disappearances of eighteen others before her imprisonment, most of whom have still not been found, she was successfully apprehended by the Bastion City Police after a lengthy shoot-out. On the night of her court trial, however, she somehow disappeared from her cell without a trace, and is still yet to be found even after the Solesian government issued all branches of law enforcement to keep a strong look-out for her. During the past three months, two more deaths and three more disappearances, all believed to be linked to Cozbi, have been reported, and she has only continued to evade justice for her crimes. If you see any sign of Cozbi in your neighborhood, alert local law enforcement as soon as possi--”_

Skyla quickly pressed a button on the console, changing the channel to one that was now belting out power ballads. 

_“And I guess that’s why they call it the blues, time on my hands could be time spent with you…~”_

Adrie chuckled, her mouth still full of banana. “Elfton John- and a good one, at that. I swear, though, _Elfton_ John? That _has_ to be some kind of stage name.”

“It’s not, actually.” Her mother replied, a smirk on her face. “I got a chance to ask him a few questions about himself back during his breakout years, and sure enough, that’s his real name.”

“Wait, during his _breakout_ years? How?”

“Those with longevity like mine, my darling, get the chance to see and experience _many_ things.”

“Really? Elfton John’s in his seventies now, and you don’t look a day past your late twenties.”

“Again, Adrie, one of the perks of immortality.”

Adrie simply opted to shrug in response, before popping the remaining half of the banana in her mouth, wiping any of the stickiness that had gotten on her other hand, and then rolling down the window and chucking the peel outside.

“You made sure that didn’t land on the road, right? Or someone else’s yard?”

“It should be fine.”

Her response was flippant, with little effort really put into it- something that Skyla noticed.

“You should be paying more attention if you’re going to do stuff like that, you know.”

Adrie didn’t really reply, feeling as though her mother’s words were largely rhetorical, and went to grab her guitar from her feet, hoisting it up onto her lap and withdrawing her guitar pick from her pocket. She focused her attention on the song playing, the pick gently pushing down on the D string.

_“Just stare into space, picture my face in your hands, live for each second without hesitation, and never forget I’m your man…~”_

Adrie began strumming her guitar to the rhythm of the song. She was able to largely get through the remainder of the song, though unfortunately for her, she occasionally missed a few notes, and as a result it threw her off and broke her immersion, making her music more discordant than she would have appreciated.

“Off day?”

“No, just… thinking about how auditions are gonna go.” 

That wasn’t the actual reason, but it was the best excuse she could come up with- and the statement itself technically wasn’t untrue. 

“You’re going to do fine.” Skyla reassured her, looking over to her and stroking her hair affirmingly. “You’ve spent a fair deal of the summer practicing, and by now you only seem to be struggling with that one song.”

“You heard me rehearsing in the bathroom?”

“No. It’s like I said- you’ve just always had a hard time with that one.”

Adrie lowered her head contemplatively, before raising it back up once the car stopped. Looking up, she saw the front doors to the prestigious Aguefort Adventuring Academy standing before her from their place on the side of the sidewalk. She felt a gentle touch on her skin, and felt her head being turned towards her mother’s, forcing her to look into her eyes.

“Don’t let your worries drain your confidence too much… it’ll only weaken your performance. Besides, you’ve practiced a long time, and you clearly care about whether or not you get this role. Don’t be overly concerned about it.”

Even though she had already told herself most of what her mother had just said earlier that morning, a tender smile graced Adrie’s face, before she sighed- both out of release and to steel herself.

“Thanks, Mom.”

Her smile straightened, her expression now filled with determination.

“I’ll do everything I can to make myself a cut above the rest!”

Her response earned a chuckle from Skyla.

_“There’s_ my showgirl. Now, you had best head in. Class should be starting soon, and I still have quite the distance to go before I reach the border.”

Simply nodding in response, Adrie leaned over and gave the dryad a quick kiss on the cheek before she pocketed her guitar pick and grabbed her guitar and backpack, stepping out of the car and slinging them back over her shoulders. She set the banana she hadn’t eaten on top of the glove compartment that sat between the two front seats.

“In case you need a snack while you’re at work today.”

Skyla smiled warmly. “Thank you, Adrie.”

“Love you, Mom! See you tonight!”

“You too, sweety!”

Adrie closed the door and, after a final wave towards her now-departing mother, turned on her heel and boldly strode into the building before her. 

* * *

_Next up, we have Angela Troy, a kenku druid with a deep bond with nature who prefers action over words, and opts to watch and listen when others speak and act…_

* * *

**Angela Troy**

Race: Kenku

Sex: Female

Height: 5’08’’ 

Eye Color: Hazelnut brown

Hypothetical Voice Actress: Kira Buckland (mental voice)

* * *

While she was already drifting on the edge of consciousness, it was the light of the rising sun that fully awoke her. Angela opened her eyes, though not by much- the light in her eyes forced her to squint and avert her gaze somewhat. 

She sat up, determined to start a new day, and swung her body around so she could stand up and begin. She felt like she was forgetting something, but nonetheless she shoved herself off her resting place- only to remember what she had forgotten a second too late as her feet met with nothing and she plummeted fifteen feet to the ground.

She slightly bounced as she landed, curling up into a ball and clutching her bruised chest and aching head, rocking back and forth in an effort to vainly curb her throbbing pain. 

“Honey? Did you hear something?”

_‘Shit!’_

Finding the strength to stand up and quickly use her druidic powers, she shapeshifted into a raven and bolted back into the safety of the canopy of the tree-house she had just fallen out of. She managed to perch herself again just in time for the door to open, with a pair of gnomes walking out into the front yard- one with muttonchops and goggles, and the other with a simple lilac cloth band wrapped around her hair. The one with the muttonchops spoke first.

“Huh. I would have swore I heard something heavy hit the ground just outside the door. You heard it too, right?”

The female gnome with the cloth hair braid spoke next.

“Yeah… well, whatever it was, it looks like it’s gone now.”

Angela remained perfectly still and silent, watching them like a hawk as they took a quick look around them to see where the source of the noise had gone. Seemingly satisfied, they both looked at each other, shrugged, and walked back into the house. The polymorphed kenku mentally sighed in relief. 

_‘That was too close. I need to_ not _forget important things if I’m going to be able to keep bunking here each night- I don’t need any unwanted attention.’_

Ever since she had happened upon Elmville, it had been hard to find somewhere high-up and hard to find or reach for sleep- it wasn’t like Bastion City where you could just camp out on the rooftop of a penthouse or apartment complex for the evening. Here, you could actually see the roofs of most of the houses due to their angles, and it would get pretty suspicious if people constantly saw a kenku sleeping on top of suburban residences. Thankfully, she had also found Little Branch, a part of the neighborhood where nobody over four feet tall lived, and it was here that she had found this tree. Already twenty feet tall on it’s own, she figured a combination of decently hiding herself in the branches and the likes of halflings and gnomes perceiving the tree as even bigger than it really was did her favors in being well hidden.

Her stomach growled, and she remembered her need for breakfast. Thankfully, she had found the perfect place for that, too. After taking a moment to balance herself, she flapped her wings and took to the air, flying outwards towards the opposite side of town. 

As a raven, traversing the town was child’s play- she could cover more ground like this than she possibly could have by walking, even if she had to occasionally stop to rest atop a telephone pole or something like that. And so, the trip to Arkon’s was quick and effortless- she was there in a few minutes, the bleached-white stone of the convenience store and garage becoming all the more closer until she was flying right up to it. Upon reaching the gas station, she slowed her flight enough to begin her descent, before coming to a stop and hovering harmlessly to the ground. She quickly reverted to her true form, withdrawing a long wooden staff from her back to help her walk as she trundled forward past the clear glass doors and into the building. 

Even with her stomach begging for food, the first thing she opted to do was to check herself in a mirror; she figured that it might be best to get an idea at what her bruises looked like. Walking past aisles of junk food and snacks, she went over to the bathroom at the end of the building, entering the women’s room and allowing her to get a good look at herself. 

She was a mess, really- which was nothing new. Her feathers were matted and dirty, with twigs and leaves sticking out of the down covering her body, and she wore a green shirt and denim shorts (which were really jeans that had the legs torn off at the knee). Slung over her shoulders was her backpack, and hanging off of that was a garbage can lid and a sleeve for her staff. She pushed aside the feather around her head and chest, and as she had expected, the areas were maroon red with ruptured blood vessels. Nothing that couldn’t heal over time, though, it seemed. 

_‘Beautiful as always, Angie.’_ She jokingly thought to herself, a small smile gracing her face. _‘Nonetheless, I should probably make myself a little more presentable for the first day, at least.’_

Dropping her backpack from her shoulders, she set it down onto the bathroom floor, allowing her to get a quick look at her legs.

The flesh surrounding them was scarred and weathered, the thick hide covering her skinny legs and nimble talons considerably eaten away, exposing swaths of flesh, and large patches of skin melting into muscle. Thankfully, no bone was exposed, nor was any substantial damage beyond skin-deep dealt- if that had been the case, she may have needed more than just a staff to help her walk.

Pulling out a comb from one of her smaller backpack pouches, she brought it to her face and rose back up to the mirror, and then began stroking through her feathers to get out any detritus that had accumulated within, scraping it into the sink below. It took some time and effort (and physical pain), but when she finished, it at least no longer looked like she had run head-on into a bush on her way to school, and had otherwise given her feathers a somewhat satisfactory brush-back. Smiling to herself again, she kneeled back down to her backpack and placed the comb back into the smaller pocket that it had come from, before hoisting her backpack back over her shoulders and leaving the bathroom.

She found herself greeted once again by lines upon lines of candy, junk food, and drinks, and her stomach gurgled again.

_‘Right... now, breakfast.’_

She looked up at the store clerk- a halfling who had to sit atop a bench in order to reach the countertop and register, who was just sitting at his post and doing something on his crystal, half-heartedly looking up every now and again to check his surroundings.

_‘He seems preoccupied enough… I just gotta make sure I don’t bring too much attention to myself.’_

She began skulking around the store, browsing the contents on the shelves. Eventually settling on the pastry section, she deftly plucked a plastic-wrapped honey bun from a box of its fellows and quietly slipped it into her pocket, before turning her attention to the refrigerators and browsing the drinks available to her and hobbling forward towards them. Thinking that the honey bun was enough empty carbohydrates and sugar on it’s own, she decided on getting a flavored water- something fresher to cleanse her palate. She tried to open the door to the fridge she had chosen as silently as she could (which was easier said than done, no thanks to the damn vacuum doors), only to fail as the entire cooler rattled as she found herself forced to nearly rip the door off of it’s hinges to get it open. She stopped briefly when the clerk sent a curious glance her way, and only went to make another move when she was sure that he was no longer looking. With renewed caution after such a close call, she delicately pulled free a strawberry-lemonade water- conveniently enough, the last one in stock- and shoved it into her other pocket as quietly as she could.

Having got what she wanted, she made for the door post-haste, and thankfully it had seemed that the clerk hadn’t noticed her when it had truly counted, as she was able to leave unmolested, pushing past the glass door and out into the open air once again. By now, the sun had almost completely risen in full. Odds are, school would start fairly soon.

Angela internally groaned. She didn’t feel like walking, but at the same time, she had already used one of her daily shapeshifts, and she was hoping to use the other for a more opportune time.

She shrugged to herself, swallowing down her indignation. The distance between Arkon’s and the Aguefort Adventuring Academy was far less than that of the Academy and Little Branch, and odds are that she wasn’t running late, as long as she started moving as soon as possible.

She could live with walking for just a little bit.

* * *

_For our next main character, we have Corian Amakiir- the son of an elvish politician who aspires to enter the political field much like his father. As if this young man wasn’t already amazingly savvy for his age, he himself is much more than meets the eye..._

* * *

**Corian Amakiir**

Race: High Elf

Sex: Male

Height: 5’06’’ 

Eye Color: Green 

Hypothetical Voice Actor: Matthew Mercer

* * *

“ *sigh*... checkmate.”

With a final decisive movement, a two-dimensional black rook shifted into the path of a two-dimensional white king, successfully boxing it in with the help of various other properly-placed pieces on a two-dimensional board.

“Not gonna lie, it’s a little humiliating, being beaten by a computer…”

Corian heard a knock at his door.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and he heard someone clearing their throat.

“I trust that you are dressed, Corian?”

The boy turned around in his revolving chair, spinning himself in place to a degree just enough to find himself looking at his father.

* * *

**Alastere Amakiir**

Race: High Elf

Sex: Male

Height: 5’03’’

Eye Color: Green 

Hypothetical Voice Actor: Alastair Duncan (an honest coincidence)

* * *

Alastere was a confident and imposing man, with fair white skin and a healthy head of raven-black hair with a few silver streaks, which he allowed to fall to his shoulders. While not buff, he was still fit in the kind of way you could only achieve through frequent exercise and a healthy diet, and he was lean enough to be a slender and tall presence in a room. He was currently wearing a navy blue dress shirt and pants- an aura of professionalism was often required for the duties Alastere conducted. The only thing that really spoke of the diplomat’s longevity, aside from the aforementioned light lines in his dark hair, was the fair number of age lines that accentuated the curves of his cheekbones and face, and even this provided him with a wise, sagely front that commanded the respect of those younger and lesser in knowledge and experience.

“I am, father.”

“Then I’d recommend that you’d come down and get some breakfast. School will be starting in not too long.”

Simply nodding in response as Alastere closed the door behind him, Corian logged out of the tab on his computer that held his game, before leaving his chair and taking a look at the room surrounding him for a moment. While somewhat luxurious, it was spoken for less in aesthetic and more in quality- he had a bed that, while comfortable, wasn’t overly puffy or gaudy, as well as a tall bookshelf filled with expensive and professional books that were largely informational. His walls were largely bare, with only a fairly large window on the west side that overlooked the street below, a door embedded on the south side that led to his closet, and a mirror off to the east side hanging a few inches off of the ground serving as the only deviances of the blank, flat slate of each wall. 

Heading over to his bed, he picked up his backpack, lying untouched on the sheets, and pulled back the lip of the biggest pocket, which had not been zipped closed yet and had still been lying somewhat open. Inside was a notebook, as well as a couple of pencils tucked into the spiral binding.

Looking back over to his desk, he saw his computer plugged into the wall, as well as a laptop and crystal lying off to the left edge of the desk that were plugged in and charging as well. Grabbing his backpack by the handle at the very top, he brought it over to his desk before he unplugged the laptop and crystal, shoving the laptop in his main pouch and the crystal into a smaller pocket in the front of the bag. His inventory complete, he slung the backpack over his shoulder and ran down the stairs, already smelling cinnamon in the air as he descended the stairs towards the dining room.

Awaiting him at the round table, aside from his father with his own food, was a short stack of three pancakes with buttercream frosting, sprinkled cinnamon, and crushed nuts spread across them. 

“Cinnamon roll pancakes?”

“Your favorite. I figured I’d treat you on your first day of school.”

Without saying another word, Corian eagerly went over to the table, setting his backpack next to his chair, picking up his fork and butterknife, and eagerly carving into the sugary dish and stuffing chunks of it into his mouth. 

As he did so, both Corian and his father were looking to the TV off to the left, which was currently on. Alastere had set up a TV in the room so he could watch one of many news stations that he trusted during mealtimes, allowing him to stay up to date on worldly matters as often as he could. Of course, as of now, there wasn’t any news report playing, but rather an ad- one that, from what it seemed, was showcasing the newest line of crystal products.

_“Clarity Crystals is now introducing Clarity Resurgence, our newest and best wave of products to date! With superior battery run time, superior data, and a superior search engine, you are guaranteed to have the very best experience you can possibly have when you use a product from our Clarity Resurgence line!”_

Corian grunted disdainfully. “It’s not even convincing in its attempt to appeal to people. It's just marketing and special effects- they’re practically _begging_ for people’s money!”

“Perhaps it’s not convincing to people who know better like us.” Alastere admitted. “But we must remember, Corian, that not all have the same insight regarding the politics and ulterior motives behind the theatrics and editing that we do. Many of the people who buy into these things are often just trying to live their lives and go through the motions.”

“Still, I doubt it’ll even be remotely as good as they claim- it’ll probably only run just a _little_ better than the previous line, or it’ll come with some kind of contract or subscription that adds money to the bill, or something like that.”

“Smart business practices are not always honest ones, Corian.”

His mind still somewhat clouded with incredulity, though not necessarily towards his father, he simply conceded with a nod. 

In decent time, he finished his pancakes, wiping off his mouth with a napkin and picking up his plate and utensils. 

“Thank you for breakfast, father. I’m going to go brush my teeth.”

“Sounds good. Just don’t forget to put your dishes in the sink, at least, and please be quick.”

Once again nodding in obedience, Corian rushed off to the kitchen to put away his dishes, before quickly running back up to the bathroom to handle his dental hygiene. Once that was accounted for, he rushed back downstairs.

His father, as he had expected, was waiting for him at the door, the age lines in his face and silver streaks in his hair gone, and his hair now suddenly cut off at the ear- the work of a _prestidigitation_ spell that allowed Alastere to keep up appearances.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Then let us depart.”

Alastere opened the door, allowing Corian to walk through first, entering the bright sunlight of the morning and allowing him to behold, surprisingly enough, a relatively mundane car rather than his father’s limo as he was (admittingly) expecting. Even by the standards of an ordinary car, however, it was relatively fancy, with a top-of-the-line design and what Corian could only assume was a variety of new arcane technologies built within.

“Not the limo?”

His father shot him a questioning look.

“N-not to sound ungrateful, of course, I just thought we’d be heading to school in the limo.” He quickly added, attempting to save face.

“Hardly. First off, I exclusively use the limo for business ventures. Second, I feel like bringing you to school in a limo would make us look pretentious.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, that would make sense, I suppose.”

They both walked into the car and took their seats, Corian placing his backpack at his feet and his father simply pressing a button where a keyhole would otherwise be, the fire elemental within the engine sputtering out of dormancy with a screech. As the car came to life, the car’s radio and dashboard popped into being, projected on an interactive screen.

Corian considered the soft, spongy fabric of the seats. “There’s a lot of bells and whistles in this thing, is there?”

“Sure does. It even has cameras in the back that allow you to see what’s going on, like so…”

Alastere pressed a button, showing a camera view of their parking lot and the road ahead.

“... as well as divination sensors in both the front and back that automatically stop the car when you’re about to run into something.”

“... would you care to explain the difference between this and the crystal commercial?”

“With a crystal, any differences or changes- or rather, lack thereof- from previous models are usually subtle enough that most won’t notice them. With a car, people are going to start noticing pretty quickly whether or not you’ve delivered on your promises, since people are going to be wanting to actively use the things you offer. Honesty might not always pay in business, Corian, but it's impossible to deny it whenever it does.”

Corian didn’t reply, simply opting to remain silent as his father began driving. In retrospect, Alastere had made a good point- although it was rare for him to not make good points, when it came down to people and politics. He had known the rules and played the game far longer than Corian himself had, and as much as his father’s rebuttals may have irked him when his opinion or position in such matters was questioned, he ultimately had to admit that many of them had a fair lesson to learn, or at least gave him a reason to stop and think; he was still young, and while more knowledgeable than most in the political field, he was still more ego than experience than he would have liked, or liked to admit.

His father’s hand moved towards the screen console that stood between them, and he turned on the radio station.

_“In other news, it’s been three months since the capture and escape of the notorious kidnapper, serial killer and vampire Belinda Cozbi. Responsible for the deaths of nine and the disappearances of eighteen others before her imprisonment, most of whom have still not been found, she was successfully apprehended by the Bastion City Police after a lengthy shoot-out. On the night of her court trial, however, she somehow disappeared from her cell without a trace, and is still yet to be found even after the Solesian government issued all branches of law enforcement to keep a strong look-out for her. During the past three months, two more deaths and three more disappearances, all believed to be linked to Cozbi, have been reported, and she has only continued to evade justice for her crimes. If you see any sign of Cozbi in your neighborhood, alert local law enforcement as soon as possible. She is highly dangerous and highly intelligent, and the potential threat she may pose towards you and your loved ones cannot be ignored. Now, onto sports!”_

Alastere changed the station again, and the car was suddenly rattling with an explosion of sound, bass guitars and drums completely shattering the calm, contemplative air of the vehicle.

Corian couldn’t help but snort in amusement given the sudden shift in tone that had just occurred, a hand flying to his face in a vain effort to suppress it. Alastere turned towards him again, although a playful smirk had found a way on his own face as well.

“What? Can’t a good man just unwind with a little heavy metal?”

Corian lowered his hand, his face pulled upwards in an amused smile even now, before he relaxed himself with a breath of fresh air, although his contented expression remained and his mood still completely turned around from what it had been a minute before.

Soon enough, the two found themselves pulling into the drive-through of the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, with them currently waiting behind a much older car.

“By the way, before you go, Corian, there are a couple of things in the back seat for you to have.”

“Oh! Alright then.”

The front passenger’s seat door opened, and a golden auburn elf stepped out of the car, placed what seemed to be a banana into the car, closed the door, and seemingly marched into the building as the car drove off. Alastere pulled up, prompting Corian to grab his bag, exit the car, and come around back to open the door and see what his father had gotten him.

Sitting there, on the left back seat, was a rapier, shortsword, and a flintlock pistol, all in their respective sheaths and holsters.

“Weapons.”

“Yes. I figured if you were going somewhere called the Aguefort _Adventuring_ Academy, I figured you’d need something to at least defend yourself. Better to be the politician with a gun than the one getting shot by one.”

“You spoil me, father.”

“Please, treating you to your favorite breakfast and providing you with some basic necessities is hardly spoiling you, my son. Besides, even if I was, it helps that you don’t let it go to your head.” 

Throwing his backpack over his shoulders, Corian scooped up the miniature arsenal in his arms, before coming back around to the front of the car to greet Alastere farewell.

“Thank you, father.”

“You are most welcome. I’ll see you after school.”

After trading one final nod of affirmation between each other, Alastere did him the courtesy of closing Corian’s door for him, before driving off to work. Corian turned towards the building before him, and sighed. 

“Alright, first day. Let’s do this.”

And with that, he moved onward.

* * *

_We now come to David Barkrock, a gentle giant who, while aspiring to be a boxer and trains himself in sword-fighting and cooking, largely just goes through the motions and travels where the wind takes him..._

* * *

**David Barkrock**

Race: Firbolg

Sex: Male

Height: 7’06’’

Eye Color: Amber

Hypothetical Voice Actor: Michael Kovach

* * *

“Steady… _steady_ … and there!”

Pouring the last of the waffle batter into the maker and closing the lid, David stood back and allowed himself a moment to breathe, proud of himself for what he had accomplished. He took an intake of air through his nostrils, smiling contentedly as the smell of cinnamon registered in his mind, compelling him to turn towards a stack of dark brown waffles on the kitchen counter.

He had gotten up earlier than normal this morning in an effort to make some breakfast, not just so his Dad didn’t have to that morning, but also to test his ever-growing skills in cooking. He wasn’t going to lie, his memory wasn’t the best, so he was a bit concerned that he’d screw up some crucial step and ruin the recipe- especially since he was doing a little experimenting and added an entire tablespoon of cinnamon, with understandably unknown consequences- but, much to his surprise, it had all worked out just as planned.

“Huh… what smells so cinnamony down here…”

David turned his head towards the stairs to see his father, Ragh, somewhat shuffle down into the kitchen/entryway area, already dressed for work in attire that, while hardly fancy, was formal enough to at least show he took his job seriously. The half-orc rubbed some more sleep out of his eyes before he looked over to the young firbolg, his face breaking out into a smile.

“Huh- so that’s where you were. I had gone over to your room to wake you up, but I came down when I started smelling cinnamon.”

“Yeah, I got up a bit earlier to practice cooking. I made waffles, and I decided to add a bit of cinnamon to the mix.”

“Did you remember fruit and protein, too?”

“I… did not.” He admitted, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. 

His father chuckled, though in a fond, tender way that conveyed understanding. “Okay, then. Just be sure to get something more than just carbohydrates in your system, alright? You’ll need it tonight in particular, with you having boxing class tonight.”

David simply nodded, almost immediately turning to the fridge, pulling it open and grabbing a bottle of protein milk from one of the upper shelves, as well as pulling out a couple of bananas from one of the produce cabinets and a tupperware container filled with uncooked bacon, still stuck together in a single sheet of meat. 

Placing all of these things next to the plate of waffles on the counter, he immediately turned to the drawers and went for a pan to cook the bacon on, when he smelled something burning. Realization snapped back into his mind.

“Shit, the waffle!”

He made the valiant effort to rush back for the burning breakfast item, but in his haste he ended up banging his head against the roof of the cabinet he had stuck his head in and fell on his rear end trying to back up. Clutching and rubbing his head and groaning in displeasure all the while, he nonetheless staggered over to the waffle maker only one countertop away.

He opened it up, only to see that it had been almost completely blackened in his absence.

“Aw, shucks… ah, well, that’s only one waffle down, I suppose… still, though, I was doing so well…” 

Ragh, now standing next to the counter where David had been, let out a teasing laugh as the firbolg plucked the ruined waffle from the mold and dumped it in the trash can.

His father stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, prompting David to straighten his posture somewhat. Despite, according to Ragh himself, being a little more than a foot taller than the half-orc, the firbolg, from his own perspective, never saw himself as any taller than his father; whether this phenomenon was physical or psychological in nature, David didn’t really know nor care enough to look into.

“Why don’t you finish getting ready? I can take care of what’s left for breakfast.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. I’m pretty much ready to go, but you still have a couple of things to pack up.”

With his father’s affirmation, David left, heading up to his room and pushing open the door to see a variety of exercise props- punching bags and martial arts dummies, as well as a weight lift- and a bed with its sheets still askew. On his nightstand, there was a radio and a small stack of CDs, as well as his crystal connected to a charger, and right beside that was a mirror. He opted to walk over to it, getting a good look at himself. 

He was clad in a pair of green camo cargo shorts, as well as a red shirt with white text that read, “Don’t touch me, I’m digesting” (a birthday gift, as well as a teasing jab by his father after uttering those very words at some point). As for himself, he had a face that came with a prominent red nose and a somewhat square chin, which were partially grown over by a slight scraggle of brown facial hair and sideburns (he reminded himself that he would have to shave the former), as well as deep, warm yellow eyes that radiated tranquility.

Turning away from the mirror, David walked over to his backpack, which was propped up against the sword rack that held his shortsword. Opening the main pocket, he was content to see that most of his stuff was already in there- a notebook, a couple of mechanical pencils, and the sheathe for his sword. Reaching back up towards the sword, he plucked it from it’s stand and grabbed the sheathe, sliding the blade into the pocket and putting the entire thing into his bag before slinging said bag over his shoulder. He walked over to his crystal, unplugging it from the cord and putting it into his pocket before he went back downstairs.

To his surprise, his plate was all set up already- the bottle of vanilla protein milk next to a plate with a waffle and a couple strips of bacon, remarkably well-cooked in only a couple of minutes. His father had set up his own plate, minus the milk, and in between them at the center of the table was a plate of bacon and a heated bottle of gnomish syrup. 

He sat down at his spot, turning over and checking the bacon to be extra-sure it wasn’t undercooked anywhere. It was not.

“How did you cook this so fast?”

He looked up at his father, who was smiling as he was finishing up the last couple of pieces. “Flash cooking.” He simply replied. “Set the stovetop on high and let the pan heat up enough, throw on a couple pieces, and you can have them cooked in only a minute, maybe two.”

David looked back at his food.

“Go ahead and eat. Don’t wait for me.”

And so, David did so, taking care of his bacon first before pushing his waffle more onto the plate and grabbing the syrup to pour it on top. As he continued to eat, he opted to ask his father a question, his mouth still stuffed with waffle.

“You mentioned something about having gone to Aguefort Academy when you were my age, Dad. What was it like? This being my first year and all, I’m just kind of trying to get an idea of how things might go.”

“Honestly, David, high school in general is usually a fuckin’ rollercoaster for everyone involved, and you’d be a fool to thing it would be any less so at Aguefort.” Ragh replied, having by now grabbed his own plate and sat down across from his son. “I know for a fact it was for me- a _lot_ of crazy shit happened when I was there, some stuff crazier than others, and while I highly doubt your story will be identical to mine, the main thing I’d suggest when you go into Aguefort is the mindset of “nothing is impossible”- because there, literally _nothing_ is impossible… though I suppose everyone already kind of knows that by now.”

David simply nodded, chewing his food while casting his eyes to the ground contemplatively.

After having a couple of more waffles and some more bacon, as well as finishing his protein milk, the firbolg got up and set his dishes next to the other stuff he dirtied when he had been making waffles. He would have a lot to do when he returned home from school, that was for certain. 

After that, he, without another word, went off to brush his teeth and apply deodorant, running back upstairs towards the bathroom. Once he took care of that, he went back into the kitchen, reaching up towards one of the upper counters and pulling out a metal water bottle. Heading over to the freezer compartment underneath the fridge, he grabbed a handful of ice cubes and dumped them in with a series of metallic clicks, before heading over to the faucet and pouring some water into the bottle. Lastly, he made his way over to a smaller drawer, pulled out some water flavoring, and shot some into the bottle, before screwing the cap back on and shaking everything inside vigorously. Stowing the water bottle the best he could in one of his pockets, he made his way towards the door.

“Alright, Dad! I’m going to head out on my jog!”

“Wait, jog? Where are you going?! School’s in half an hour!”

“I know! I’m going to jog to school!”

“Really? Don’t you just want me to drive you there? I’m going there too.”

“Nah. I figured that if I just jog there, it could help me get some more exercise.” David curled his left hand into a fist and pounded his chest twice for emphasis. 

“Okay, then. I mean, I’d hate for you to burn off all of that energy you took in with breakfast… or be late...”

“I probably won’t be able to burn it off in any other way. Besides, I should have plenty of time to get there, especially if I follow the main road.”

“Alright… well, just be sure to watch for cars, then.”

“Of course.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you at school then! Love you!”

“Love you too!”

And with that, David stepped outside, closing the front door behind him as he stepped out into the mostly-barren earth and took a look out into the road.

He took a moment to breathe in and out a couple of times, before he pushed himself forward.

* * *

_And lastly, we have Dreeda, the second child of both Gorthalax the Insatiable and Sklonda Gukgak who, to put it bluntly, has no idea what to do with herself. The only things going for her is that she has demon powers and that she is a practiced liar to the point of skill, so… that’s a start, I suppose. Still, she nonetheless remains determined to bring herself to the same level as the rest of her family, and there’s no better place to begin than Aguefort..._

* * *

**Dreeda Gukgak - The Insatiable**

Race: Goblin Tiefling

Sex: Female

Height: 5’05’’ 

Eye Color: Heterochromia (one fiery orange, one chartreuse)

Hypothetical Voice Actor: Kimlinh Tran

* * *

Dreeda found herself snapped out of the dark bliss of sleep by the piercing shriek of an alarm clock. With a groan, she struggled to open her eyes, her vision of blur as she flailed out her arms blindly in trying to make contact with the “snooze” button. 

She eventually succeeded, one of her fingers lazily pressing down on something that made the shrill beeping stop. Letting loose with another exhausted groan, she simply opted to fall back down onto her bed and sink back into sleep.

At least, she would have, had her family not had other plans.

There was a knock at the door, followed by the gruff but calm voice of her father.

“Dreeda? I heard your alarm go off. You up?”

Dreeda sat back up, forcing herself to rub the sleep out of her eyes and widen them once more- both of which required more physical exertion than one would think.

“Yeah.” She croaked. “I’m up.”

“Okay. Be sure to get ready to go then. Don’t fall back to sleep.”

The tiefling merely grunted in affirmative in response, summoning up all of her willpower to turn herself around and step down onto the carpeted floor, before walking over to her closet and pulling out a pair of red jean shorts and a black shirt with white and green paint-like blotches printed all over it. Compiling her clothing choices into a neatly-folded pile in her hands, she left her room and entered the bathroom, placing her choices on the toilet and taking a quick look at herself in the mirror as she did so. 

Looking back at her was what could only be described as a goblin that was given a hobgoblin’s height and skin color, which currently had black bags under its eyes. Having just gotten out of bed, she was only wearing a utilitarian bra and a pair of women’s sleep shorts, leaving her body mostly exposed for her to see. Her face and body shape had a wide variety of sharp, angular contours that framed a lanky stature, largely obtained from her mother and accentuated by her demonic heritage. Her pointed ears jutted out from the sides of her head, and her scarlet red skin and maroon hair- the former covered with a thin but tough layer of dark brown infernal hide, and the latter only reaching a little past her ears- stood out amidst the pale yellows and faded whites of the bathroom. Unusually, the only real signs of her heritage outside of her skin and hair color were her innately sharp teeth- something she reminded herself with a quick smile to her reflection. She had sprouted no horns, nor cloven hooves for feet, nor a forked tail as a sign of her bloodline- instead, hers had manifested in, quick literally, more _magical_ ways.

As if to remind herself of this, as well, she snapped her fingers in her left hand, and a small bead of fire erupted in the space between her index finger and thumb. Smirking to herself, she tossed the cinder into her mouth… and immediately devolved into a hacking fit, a puff of flame and smoke billowing out of her mouth and her eyes nearly bulging out of her skull, bringing her hand protectively to her throat as she carried on in a fit of violent coughing, her throat feeling like it was burning from the inside out.

She eventually stopped, just in time to hear someone knock on the door again.

“You okay in there?”

“Yeah.” She replied, her voice now a breathy rasp. “I-I’ll survive.”

“Uh… you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be okay.”

Gorthalax made no further effort to ask about it, so she assumed that she had convinced him. She rubbed her esophagus-area, which was now sore as hell- pun not intended.

_‘Note to self- you’re not enough of a devil badass yet to literally swallow fire.’_

With that duly noted, and her throat still throbbing like a bastard, she finished getting ready, applying deodorant and putting on her clothes before stepping out of the bathroom. 

Walking out into the kitchen, which, given the structure of their apartment, was completely open to the living room, Dreeda went over to the cabinets and rummaged around through the little plastic baskets that they kept all of their chips and individually-packaged stuff in, before pulling out a pair of protein bars and closing everything up. Heading over to the counter, she plugged in a blender and went to the freezer, pulling out sealed bags of frozen bananas, blueberries, and strawberries and setting them out on the table. She grabbed a couple more ingredients- some milk and honey, as well as ice- as well as the proper kitchen utensils to measure everything out, before proceeding to grind everything up into a slurry, holding onto it so the contents didn’t go flying- even though, technically, it was one of those blenders that where the pitcher and the blade-spinner-thing actually locked together somewhat.

Once she was satisfied that everything was sufficiently mulched together, she stopped the blender and went to grab a glass, heading over to another drawer and pulling out a tall, heavy one crafted with thick glass whose rim was painted with a large variety of deep colors.

Walking back over to the blender, she was about to pour out her smoothie, curling her hand around the rubber-coated handle and unplugging it from the base, before she heard Gorthalax seemingly calling someone in his and Sklonda’s shared room.

“What was that, Bill? You want me to look out for someone?”

_‘Bill?’_ Dreeda thought, what little she had heard already sparking her interest. 

Setting the still-full pitcher back down onto the base as quietly as she could, Dreeda tip-toed as silently as she could towards the room, inching her way as closely as she could towards her father. She kept moving until she was right next to the door frame, simply opting to lean in and listen afterwards, her right ear twitching as she focused in on what her father was saying, his tone unusually professional.

“What was that about Ruth, Bill? You think she’s in Solace? What would Ruth be doing in Solace… though, I suppose it doesn’t really matter, it’s probably something terrible as it is. You want me to keep a lookout for her, and tell you if you see anything? Yeah, sure, I’ll keep an eye out. Is that all? Alright then. Yeah, I’ll do my best, make sure she doesn’t fuck shit up. I’ll keep you posted. Though, might I ask, if I do manage to find her, might I ask you that, if you’re going to retrieve her yourself, you keep it relatively… subtle? Primarily, I just don’t think having a whole army of--”

There was momentary silence.

“So… no subtlety? *sigh* ‘Kay. I’ll tell you if I see her. Was that all? Okay, good. I’ll call you back if I get anything.”

There was a _beep,_ and Gorthalax sighed again. Dreeda, assuming that his call had now ended, tiptoed backwards back towards the blender, admittingly less stealthily than she would have liked but nonetheless seemingly enough to not attract her father’s attention. Once she was there, she placed the lid back on top of the pitcher and ran the blender again at a lower power, remixing the contents of the smoothie even if they hadn’t settled too terribly much by now.

As she did so, she pondered what she had heard… which was too little to be satisfactory. All she got out of the conversation were two people, Bill and Ruth, neither of whom she knew about- although Ruth seemed to be an issue and was somewhere in the country, and this Bill was responsible for apprehending her and apparently didn’t intend on doing so quietly, though her reasoning failed her as to how he commanded an army.

She stopped her remixing of her beverage and finally got to pouring it out, unplugging the pitcher from the base, removing the top and dumping the fruity sludge into her glass. Grabbing her drink and protein bars, she made her way to the table, sat down, and enjoyed her modest breakfast.

Gorthalax came out of the room, dressed in his Aguefort Academy Bloodrush Team shirt and red sport shorts, with a whistle slung over his neck. He looked over to Dreeda, who looked up at him, still drinking from her smoothie, in response.

“Did you hear any of that?”

“Nothing specific.”

Gorthalax raised an eyebrow, his voice calm and soft but still disciplinary as he spoke again.

“Dreeda.”

“Yes, I did. Still, it was just you on what seemed like a business call with some Bill guy, talking about some chick who's causing him trouble.”

“That’s not the point. You can’t just keep eavesdropping on people all of the time, especially me and your mother.”

“Who said I was eavesdropping?”

Gorthalax’s face lowered, his eyes closed as an exasperated sigh escaped his mouth.

_“Dreeda.”_

“Okay, yes, I was listening in. But how else am I going to know if something important is going on without either of you telling me?”

“If we’re not telling you, it’s probably not your business- if it was, we’d do so. And even if you hadn’t eavesdropped, and I had just been louder than I thought, you still lied just now. Twice.”

“That’s… fair.”

Yeah, she honestly couldn’t think of a defense for that- not one that would convince him, at least. She resisted the urge to start sulking in her defeat even as her thoughts became dark and bitter. Simply turning her gaze away and gulping down the last of her smoothie, she opted to simply bury her onset of pessimism in food. Her father made no further effort to reprimand her, having seemingly recognised that she had conceded. 

After finishing her breakfast, she went over to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and afterwards returned to her room to finish packing up for school, entering her room and flicking on the light to be greeted by walls filled with posters for _Fig And The Cig Figs,_ as well as framed newspaper cut-outs commemorating the exploits of her other half-sibling, Riz. She had two nightstands with each one at a side of her bed- one had a stack of CDs next to a CD player, and the other had a crystal plugged into a charger lying atop it, with a backpack braced against one of the legs. Grabbing the backpack, she unplugged her crystal and threw it in with her notebook, pencils, and a pair of currently-sheathed combat knives that she had gotten from Fig as a birthday present last year, before zipping everything up and sliding it onto her shoulder.

She left her room, and was greeted with Gorthalax waiting at the door to their apartment. 

“Ready to go?”

She simply nodded, and with that confirmation, Gorthalax opened the door leading out into the hallway of their level of the apartments. Leaving their apartment dorm, the two descended several flights of stairs before leaving the main door and entering the parking lot. Taking a second to single out their car amongst many others, they then headed over to their vehicle, entering their car as they began the drive to school. 

“The guy who runs the school… Arthur Aguefort, is it?”

“Yeah. What about him?”

“Didn’t he trap you in a ruby, or something? Don’t you hate him?”

Her father was silent for a moment, seemingly contemplating his answer.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, I really didn’t like the guy back then, and yeah, I don’t exactly like him a whole lot now, either.”

“Yet you’re working at his place.”

“The original reason why I took up a job here, twenty-six years ago, was so I could be a part of Fig’s life again after already being absent for most of it- well, that, and I couldn’t exactly return to Hell after being unable to maintain my turf for years. And not long afterwards, that was when me and Sklonda met and started dating. And then, in time, me and your mother got married, and we had you. I suppose I’m kind of getting sidetracked now. The point is, back then, and to this day, being the school’s Bloodrush Coach, surprisingly enough, has continued to offer the best opportunity to not only support myself, but ultimately do my part in supporting our family, as well.”

“Yeah… that makes sense.”

“Also, I figured it was probably a good idea to kind of make peace with the guy who still has the power to just bind me in a ruby any time he wants.”

“Yeah. That makes sense too.”

With that conversation concluded, it was only a few minutes before they reached the school building, pulling up to through the driveway as they witnessed countless students of all races and classes flocking into the building. Directly in front of them seemed to be a high elf with pale white skin, dark blonde hair, and striking green eyes walking away from his car, carrying a couple of swords and a gun in his arms out towards the building as the vehicle in front of them drove away.

Gorthalax slowly drove forward, until they stood directly before the doors.

“Alright, Dreeda- the buck stops here.”

Grabbing her backpack from the space at her feet, she opened the passenger door and stepped out.

“Have a good day at school. And stay out of trouble! Don’t-”

She could see the pit fiend before her bring a hand to his mouth, clearly trying to suppress a laugh.

“D-don’t go burning pictures of dicks into the bathroom stalls like you did last year at Oakshield.”

“What? When was that?”

It was another lie, but a playful one, and one that she didn’t really bother to make convincing. She watched her father struggle to compose himself for a second, a smirk growing on his face that only widened her own.

“Just… don’t do that, okay? I love you.”

“Love you too! See you after school!”

Finally closing the door behind her, she turned around as her father drove off, facing the building ahead of her. 

Out of the corner of her left eye, she could see a well-built firbolg come jogging up the stairs, a backpack over his shoulders and a water bottle in his hand.

Out of the corner of her right, she saw some bird girl with a staff hobble her way through the crowd, making surprisingly great progress despite her reliance on her staff.

She looked forward, took a deep breath, and strode forward confidently.

* * *

_And so, our story begins! Ladies and gentleman, you have just met, and are going to read the exploits of, Fantasy High’s New Kids!_


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day at Aguefort goes as planned for everyone.
> 
> Which basically means that it doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember what I said earlier about how the chapter dynamics were going to work going forward? Well, regarding this chapter at least, I'm already going to be breaking that rule. 
> 
> From here on out, things will operate as normal.

**Corian**

Corian trudged forward into the building, still struggling to carry his weapons as he shoved open the door into the school, coming out into the large entry space of the Academy. He lifted his head just enough to see the expansive area before him and take in his surroundings.

He regarded the swarms of teenage bodies streaming in from all directions as they went about their business and all of the various hallways leading to who-knows-where, took his current position into consideration, and came up with a conclusion.

He could not deal with all of this- not at the beginning of the day, at least.

He walked forward, determined to find a library- or _anywhere_ calmer than this chaos- and opted to check his surroundings in just enough time to stop before he could run into a pretty young elf with orange-brown skin and hair, a red shirt, and khaki cargo shorts- from what it looked like, the very same one he saw go into the building before he was dropped off.

She seemed to be looking around for something as well, and Corian deduced that she was in a similar position he was. He decided to ask, not only to be sure, but because he knew that he’d have to start interacting with his fellow students at some point, especially if he was going to be part of a group, and so he had best practice with _someone._

“Looking for something?”

She turned, exposing a pair of bright blue eyes that looked straight at him before she spoke as well.

“Uh, yeah. Do you have any idea where the theater would be? I have auditions to go to…”

“I do not. However, I myself am looking for the library. Perhaps we could help each other find where we want to go?”

“Better than nothing. Sure.”

And so, Corian joined her, both of them keeping an eye out for signs towards the place they were working for. No sooner than they started, a flash of vibrant green washed across her skin and over her body like a wave as her expression perked up, her face breaking out into an excited smile.

“I found it! And there’s the library, too!”

She pointed over to a sign posted off on one of the hallway walls, with directions pointing to how far a certain way both the library and theater were.

“Huh… I wonder how I didn’t notice that earlier…”

Corian, satisfied, turned to the other elf who had assisted him.

“Well, then. You have my thanks. I’ll be on my way, now- I wish you luck with whatever your pla--”

She didn’t let him finish, with her expression becoming manic with excitement and her clasping her hands together in anticipation, her skin still a lush green. She bolted down the path that led to the theater, leaving the high elf in the dust.

“... okay then.”

He swallowed down the little bit of offense that had arisen, instead deciding to start making his own way there so he could properly suit up and have a few moments in peace before the first bell rang.

Following the plethora of signs that pointed one direction after enough, he finally happened upon the library, pushing his way through the front doors and setting his weapons down on one of the tables, each clattering onto the hard surface quite noisily.

“Shush. People are trying to read here.”

Flinching at the suddenness of the deep voice that had spoken, Corian turned his head towards the source, and saw, sitting at the librarian’s front desk, what could only be described as a giant humanoid with an octopus-like head, tentacles trailing down nearly three feet and disappearing past the surface of the desk. The creature was built with a tall, lanky, spindly physique, which wore a bulky black robe and came with a pair of four-digited hands- one wearing a strange ring carved from amber on the ring finger. And describing him as “giant” was no exaggeration- even sitting down, he would have stood at a good six feet tall, towering almost an entire foot higher than Corian.

Corian identified the creature as an ulitharid from a book he’d read a while back- a special variety of illithid that, allegedly, transformed into an elder brain upon death, the beings that served as hive minds for lesser illithids.

_‘How convenient for me to have known and remembered that strange little tidbit, just for this situation.’_

He had also noticed that the only one who had been reading was the ulitharid itself, who had been paging through a book titled _Warforged And Peace._ There were no other students or faculty here, which made sense.

Still, rather than critique the creature’s judgement, he decided to simply stay on it’s good side, especially if it was a staff member.

“My apologies, Mr. …”

He looked over onto the front desk, and set his eyes at a triangular nameplate made to look like marble sitting at the frontmost edge of the desk, words emblazoned in grey.

_Ghel’riks_

_Aguefort Academy Librarian_

**Ghel’riks**

Race: Ulitharid

Sex: Male

Height: 9’00’’

Eye color: White, featureless voids

Hypothetical Voice Actor: David Sobolov

“Ghel’riks.” The creature spoke again, finishing for him, before going back to his book.

The doors opened again before Corian could act towards preparing himself once more, and Corian turned around to see a kenku with somewhat ratty clothing hobble forward into the area, balancing herself on a tall staff as she approached the ulitharid at the desk. Stowing her staff behind her back, the kenku began making signs with their hands, first pointing to a notepad on the desk, then to herself, then extending one of her hands, palm open, and using the other to pantomime her writing something.

Ghel’riks seemed to catch on fairly quickly, his eyes squinted analytically. “You want to use the notepad to write something?”

She nodded, and the illithid kindly handed her the notepad and a pencil. Quickly scribbling out a message, she showed the librarian what she had written.

“Books on infrastructure and construction?”

She nodded again. 

“To your right, and then take a left at the end. You should find them fairly quick, though feel free to inform me if you can’t.”

Clasping her hands and bowing her head gratefully, she took the notepad and proceeded to write out one last, quick message before grabbing her staff and moving towards where Ghel’riks had pointed her to. Taking back what she had borrowed, the ulitharid looked at the notepad, his eyes trailing downwards some more until they stopped. His entire face seemed to lift up strangely, his eyes widening a tad.

With nothing else of the situation to behold, Corian brought his attention back to his weaponry, moving forward to don the swords and gun before him while also trying to make as little noise as he could, preferring _not_ to piss off the creature only ten feet away from him that could use psychic power to crush his mind like an eggshell. 

Going for his rapier first, he slung the shoulder belt attached to the sheath of his rapier over his shoulder. Sadly, with all of the buckles and loose metal bits that it had, the action came with a discordant myriad of tiny clicks and clacks.

“I said quiet. People are trying to do things here.”

To the ulitharid’s credit, there actually were people besides himself working here now. Grimacing at the librarian’s stern tone, Corian then went for his shortsword next, trying his best to be much quieter this time.

Which once again failed, once again due to a variety of tiny metal pieces and loosely-swinging tidbits complicating things as he looped a belt around his pants, a shortsword in its sheath attached to it.

“If you don’t stop making noise, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

While Ghel’riks was succeeding in keeping his composure, Corian could still hear the undercurrent of frustration creeping into the creature’s voice.

The kenku came back, carrying a couple of books and, thankfully, breaking Ghel’riks’ focus on Corian as he went to attend to his newest customer. 

“Ah, your back. Have you found what you’re looking for?”

Using the illithid’s distraction to his advantage, Corian went for his gun, whose holster merely had a clip-on to attach to the belt he already possessed. 

Thankfully, being just a clip-on, it made minimal noise as he connected it to his belt, with Ghel’riks being none the wiser as Corian finished gearing up. Afterwards, the high elf opted to stand as straight and still as possible, paranoid of any movement that could make more noise and set the ulitharid off. 

The individual in question was now handing the kenku girl a small, plastic card, which she accepted with a smile.

“And here’s a library card, for when you check out anything in the future. Normally I’d hand these out tomorrow when everyone comes down here and I explain how this place works, but… I’ll make you an exception. Won’t lie, you kind of brightened my day.”

Simply giving a gracious nod, the other student turned and left, walking over to and out the door. With that, Ghel’riks returned to his book, sticking his long fingers underneath a canopy of tentacles before turning the page.

Seemingly forgotten about, Corian bolted to the doors as fast as he could, making all of the noise in the world as he full-on sprinted, busted through the doors, and ran through the hall, and only slowed down once he opted to mingle back into the crowds.

**Adrie**

Pushing her way through one of the doors, Adrie was briefly shrouded in darkness as she walked forward, only to be enveloped by light as the expansive theater, with the stage and vast rows of seats, became visible to her. It was fitting, really- it was like stepping up onto the stage itself, lights shining down upon her as she was ready to deliver her performance. 

She could hear and see the other students that had arrived as well, flocking around the flip-up seats and on the stage, setting up and putting together the scenery for the play that would be ready by the end of the week. She had practiced nonstop for this play that was going to start off the year; according to the flyers she had received, _The Serf of Obligation,_ high-octane swashbuckling adventure that it was, had been chosen to embolden and “pump up” the students towards whatever time they had at Aguefort, be it one year or four, in their pursuit towards being adventurers… as well as whatever else they wanted to be, of course, though being an _adventuring_ academy, the main priority was just that.

Coming around the front seats and next to the stage, which towered over her in her current position, she came up to a bulky, tall man with stony, grey skin wearing a plaid shirt, beige jeans, and a large- and she meant _large_ \- beret, concluding what seemed to be a conversation between a couple of other students as they walked off.

“Excuse me? Are you Hargis?”

The man turned around where he stood, and now that she was closer to him and could see his face, she realized just how tiny she was in comparison to him, finding herself having to step back before she could even look up at him. Now that he was facing her, she was also able to see that his shirt was a button-up and his expression was a stoic, stone-like face that broke out into a small smile when he looked down at her. The biggest surprise, however, came when he spoke- the voice that addressed her was much more high-pitched and nasally than she had expected for someone so big.

“Yes, I am. I’m the one who’s going to be directing this year’s school play.”

Adrie had heard about the goliath in the theatre scene before, if largely in part due to her own passion regarding acting and theatrics; Hargis had started out in this very school, playing the role of Dordara in the school’s take on _Barkas And Dordara,_ and had succeeded to moving on to bigger things, eventually establishing himself as a well-known actor within that sphere of influence. 

“Okay then. I’m here for auditions. I should be on the list- Adrie Primrose.”

The goliath picked up a clipboard from off the stage, having been hanging halfway off of the stage floor, and paged through the papers stacked on top of one another.

“Adrie… Primr- ah! Here you are!”

“So… when do auditions start?”

“They actually won’t start until after school is done for the day. I will tell you how it’ll go, however- we’ll call people up one at a time, we’ll ask you what character you’re auditioning for, you’ll provide your audition, and we’ll compare how everyone did.”

Adrie simply nodded in acceptance; it was better than nothing, she supposed.

“Until then, though, why don’t you go around and talk to some of the other students? You’ll be working with them, so it’s probably a good idea to get to know them a little.”

Nodding, she silently walked off towards the back, turning into a row of seats and sitting down on the edge of a random one with a sigh, the folding seat giving way under her as it was built to. 

She had been so ready to go, and now here she was, needing to wait even longer to give the crowd her all.

She felt a brief vibration on her right, compelling her to turn her head to see what it was.

Now sitting next to her was a well-built young man with dark skin, pale white hair, and striking red eyes, who was currently wearing a pair of denim jeans and a black short-sleeved T-shirt with various streaks of blue, red and green all over the place in an artistic mess. 

On top of that? In Adrie’s opinion, he was hot as hell.

The eladrin girl felt a smirk come to her face as she rested her eyes on his leanly but still well-muscled right arm resting on the arm of the seat, as well as his well-kept, angled face- it called to mind a hawk, almost, as he stared out almost intently ahead at nothing at all.

She was able to appreciate what little she could see of his physique for all but a few seconds before he noticed, his eyes turning to look over at her via his peripheral vision before turning his head all of the way to address her.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Just enjoying the view.”

Somehow, her blatant flirtation went over his head as he looked off to his left, scanning that side of the theater to see what she was presumably looking into intently. Seeing nothing, he shrugged and resumed his previous position, paying her no further mind.

That was, until Adrie reached forward- admittingly not much- and ran her fingers over his exposed arm, prompting his head to jerk back towards her direction, confusion written on his face.

“I’m talking about you. What do you do to look this good?”

To call him more than a little perturbed was an understatement- the expression on his face said it all. It was clear that her even _more_ blatant flirtation had hit home where the previous one had somehow failed.

“You… come on strong, don’t you? I’m flattered, but I’m only into guys.”

The look on his face spoke for itself- he was _not_ flattered. Still, Adrie promptly backed away and turned back to look ahead, focusing back on herself. She still took a glance or two at him every now and again out of the corner of her eye, though, if mainly just to satisfy herself. She plucked her guitar from its place at her feet alongside her backpack, opting to pluck out some tunes to practice before they were called to this speech that the principal was giving. 

Remembering what Hargis had said earlier, and deciding that, even if she had already made kind of a mess of things (though, to be honest, she still had no regrets), talking to the boy next to her was probably a good place to start, seeing as how they had already spoken to each other, at least.

“I suppose if I was to flirt with you, I should have learned your name first.”

The boy turned back around to face her.

“I take it you're asking for my name?”

She nodded.

“Charlie. Charlie Mendax.”

**Charlie Mendax**

Race: Human

Sex: Male

Height: 6’00’’

Eye color: Red

Hypothetical Voice Actor: Gavin Drea

“Might I know yours, as well?”

“Adrie Primrose.”

He simply nodded, returning to his own business almost as soon as that was said and done.

“What role are you hoping for?”

His focus on her returned, and for the first time in the entire conversation, his tone was something else other than bamboozled, or somewhat offended, or indifferently courteous- his face lifted as his inflection took on a more aspiring air to it, as if it was something he craved.

“The main lead- Headwick, the Privateer Apprentice.”

She recognized the essence in his tone with ease- the passion of an artist, something she more than identified with.

“What role are you working towards?” He asked, this time actually seeming interested in her response.

“The main _female_ lead- Myrtle, Headwick’s Paramour. What a coincidence, wouldn’t you think?”

She had put a dose of sultriness into her voice at that second sentence, leaning closer towards Charlie once more, who leaned back in response.

“Um… I thought I told you I was gay.”

Adrie’s guilt was almost immediate, killing her mood just as soon, and she immediately moved back into her own chair.

“I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have done that. If it wasn’t already obvious, I’m kind of into you… and I never really try to hide my feelings.”

An amused smirk came to the boy’s face. “You’re into me, huh? Nothing new there, I suppose. Trust me, I’ve heard a _lot_ of people say that.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. Back when I lived in Bastion City, I was kind of an item.”

“You lived in Bastion City? That’s not _too_ far away from here... why’d you move? Assuming that you moved, that is.”

Charlie’s expression wilted somewhat. “Things have been getting a bit hectic down there lately. Someone I knew got into a bit of legal trouble, which was the last straw for my parents. We moved up here in just enough time for me to register into the Academy.”

While his tone was as disheartened as he had visually made evident, there was something else in his voice as he had said those words that had seemed… insistant. Forced. 

Nonetheless, she decided to not press the matter, and merely keep it in mind if she ever felt the need to bring it up again.

“Alright… seeing as how you’re in a school for adventurers, what’s your class? What stood apart about you that got you in here?”

“I’m a wizard.”

“Really? You think you could show me a spell or two?”

At the request, she noticed how he seemed to literally swell with confidence- he sat up straighter, and he broke out into a self-assured grin and closed his eyes.

“Why, I’d be more than happy to.”

“Alright then. Show me what you’ve got.”

Lifting up his arm to level it with her eyes, he waved his hand towards her direction. She felt a strange tingling behind her eyes for a moment, which subsided after a short while.

“Uh… what was that?”

He frowned. “It didn’t work. Here, let me try again.”

Waving his hand at her again, this time Adrie’s vision went completely dark. She couldn’t see anything- not Charlie, nor any of her surroundings.

_‘Huh? What the hell?’_

Instinctively, she started reaching out for anything she could touch or feel, if mainly just to figure out where it had gone. It didn’t matter, however- just as soon, her vision was restored, and Charlie was no longer there.

“Charlie? Where’d you go?”

She looked around the theater auditorium for where he might have gone- that was until she saw her crystal levitating in the air, having somehow left her pocket without her noticing.

“Looking for this?”

“Hey!”

In the effort to go after her crystal, she went to nimbly crawl past her row of seats in order to reach him. After a couple of failed attempts at wriggling over the chairs, she, her stamina renewed with her frustration and indignation, practically vaulted over the seats the third time around, before lunging forward for her crystal and snatching it out of his invisible grasp effortlessly- and quicker than Charlie anticipated, too, if his hushed _“Sheesus!”_ at the action was any indication.

Smirking victoriously, she gently tossed her crystal upward with one hand and caught it with ease, before shoving it back into her pocket. She turned towards the space that Charlie presumably was, her grin lowering into a scowl.

“What was that for?”

“Consider it payback for earlier.”

Jumping at his voice now suddenly right behind her, she saw in her peripheral vision that her crystal was now once again in his invisible clutches, prompting her to swing around towards him, her arm outstretched to grab it again.

However, it seemed that he was prepared this time, and immediately tossed it into his other hand. Adrie reached for it again, only for Charlie to toss it back to his other hand once more. He succeeded in keeping her crystal away from her grasp one additional time before she, in another bout of rage, ripped it from his grip and pressed it against her chest, using her shirt to wipe off any smudges he had left on it.

“Alright, you’ve had your fun. You can come out now.”

And indeed he did, the young man popping back into view, still standing where he was just before and a satisfied smirk on his face.

“Any other tricks you plan on using to screw with me?”

“Plenty- but I won’t. I prefer to save my energy to cast spells when I really need it.”

Before anything else could be said between them, the bell rang, and all of the students and staff in the room began filing out into the hallways and towards the assembly hall. 

Bracing his arms against the top of the back of the chair, he hoisted himself over it with ease, before walking down the way and waving Adrie goodbye.

“Well, I’ll see you during auditions. Later.”

Adrie nodded somewhat dumbly, shoving her crystal into her pocket and grabbing her guitar and backpack, beginning to move with the other students.

She had to say, she enjoyed the prospect of talking to him more- and not just for the sake of drinking in the sight of his body. Charlie carried an air of confidence that the young elf found enticing, and reminded her very much of herself. Even if he wasn’t interested in any kind of relationship, she was hoping that they could be good acquaintances, at least.

_‘This is already looking to be a good year.’_

**Angela**

Angela was currently sitting down on a bench in the assembly hall, a notebook in her lap and sketching things out with her pencil, merely contemplating the developing image in front of her in silence all of the while. 

While hardly her best picture, and still a little rougher than her illustrations at their best, she nonetheless felt pride at how it was turning out so far- although even this was hardly her first time drawing this particular place.

It was a city- urban, with skyscrapers and office buildings and apartments, but also with rivers flowing with clean water, flora growing almost everywhere, and animals living wild and free, coexisting with sentient beings. Something she deemed the best of both worlds, a paradise- combining the benefits of modern society and technology and the ecological purity and beauty of the wild. 

This place was a place that did not yet exist- but she hoped it would, someday.

Deciding to take a break from this city, she went over to the margins and began to draw little otters, her hand swiftly drawing out the outside shape of one such creature.

“Whatcha drawing?”

With blinding speed, Angela snapped her notebook shut, tucking the pencil into the binder and shoving it back into her backpack with great haste.

“I think I saw some kind of city, but it was mixed with a forest or something? I’m just curious, what was that?”

Turning her head towards her offender, she saw a humanoid that, while she had many features of a goblin, was too tall to be one, as well as lacking the green skin many had in favor of a vibrant red. Her eyes were two different colors, both of them bright in a way that almost glowed, and her hair was deep enough of a red color that it was almost brown.

Angela remained silent, her clawed fingers resting on her knees, gently rolling them in a combination of anxiety and contemplation on how she’d be able to reply back.

Thankfully, the semi-goblin did that for her. “What’s wrong? Can’t you talk?”

Angela shook her head no. 

“Oh. Is there _any_ way you can communicate?”

Grabbing her notebook once more, Angela plucked the pencil out of the binding and flipped to one of the backmost pages, before scribbling down a quick message, flipping over the page, and showing her what she had written, gesturing with her taloned finger.

_I know how to write, at least._

“Oh, good! Though, why didn’t you just do that before?”

Angela wrote down another message, pointing to it again.

_I prefer to use as little of this paper as possible._

“Oh. Okay then. I won’t say a whole lot else, then, but might I ask again what you were doing?”

Starting to get annoyed, Angela scrawled down another message.

_It’s kind of a personal project- and, by the way, I would have preferred that you not have decided to just peek over my shoulder while I’m clearly trying to do something privately._

The other girl simply responded with a “suit yourself” and a shrug, before turning back around and minding her own business, tapping something out on her crystal.

The kenku girl was considering going back to her drawing now that she was no longer being bothered, except that, not long afterwards, three more people came up to take seats on the same bench as she was. One was a tawny-skinned elf who carried an acoustic guitar in addition to her backpack, one was a noticeably fit, dark-skinned human, and the last was a high elf with dark blonde hair who was wearing a cobalt-colored dress suit, and currently had a small assortment of weapons hanging off of him. The female elf and human took the spots to Angela’s immediate left, while the male elf sat next to the semi-goblin on the right.

Before she could be too worried about her discomfort among all of the people gathered around her, she noticed two people step forward onto the stage. Stepping up to the podium was an old man with dark skin and a long, white beard, dressed in a purple corduroy tuxedo and wearing a golden monocle over his right eye connected to a chain. In his left hand, he carried a golden flip-cover stopwatch, also connected to a chain; as he seemingly cleared his throat, he shoved the watch into his pocket and clasped his hands together. The second person seemed to be a dragonborn- they had bottlenose-like snout with a strange purple crest fanning out from the back of their head, and their body was covered in reddish-brown scales. Beyond that, they wore the police uniform of the Elmville Police Department, and from what she could make out from a distance, they were appropriately equipped as well- they had a nightstick, taser, and flintlock pistol on their person, and they also carried what seemed to be a staff with a metal cap for a head in their right hand. They eventually spoke up, carrying a microphone of their own which they used to address the crowd. Their voice was deep and stern, but lightly-toned and noticeably feminine enough for Angela to conclude that the dragonborn was female. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, your principal, Arthur Aguefort!”

Walking off the stage sideways, flourishing her right arm to gesture to the principal, the officer departed, allowing the other man to become the center of attention.

While not too difficult given their distance, Angela found herself eavesdropping on the orange-brown elf next to her, with her whispering to the human boy at her own side. Needless to say, she wasn’t too great at being discreet.

“Did you see her? The dragonborn? She’s one of my moms. By the way, the principal kind of looks like you. Are you two related?”

“Huh. I guess we do. No, we aren’t, it’s probably just a coincidence.”

The principal cleared his throat, drawing Angela’s focus back to him, as he pulled out a tea cup on a saucer out of his jacket and began to speak.

“Welcome, one and all, to another year here at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, where we train the next generation of adventurers. But what, you might ask, _is_ an adventurer?”

From there, the old man’s speech was somewhat of a blur of noise to the kenku druid, with him going on about what an adventurer was and what they did, and how important it was being part of a party so everyone could help each other not die on a quest, before rambling on about how exactly one could benefit the party and the people within. Angela mostly spaced out on it all, only reinstating her focus again after a few minutes of obliviousness. 

“And that is the meaning of a hero. And may none of us forget…”

He took a sip of his drink, and reacted in disgust.

“Oy, that’s terrible.”

He took out a crystal and pressed what she could only assume was a button or app on it, and kept it in front of his tea for a few seconds before he nodded, seemingly satisfied, and placed his crystal back into his pocket.

“Well, it’s not poisoned, at least. As I was saying, may none of us forget that the greatest magic of all is chronomancy- the magic of time. It is my hope that, by the time you leave these halls for the last time, you will have made wondrous memories of your time here and developed relationships with others that will persist long past your school days. Welcome, freshmen, to your first year at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy!” 

And with that, he vanished in a soft flash of light, prompting the dragonborn from earlier to walk up to the podium and speak into the mic. 

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, here’s how things are going to go. Today is overall just a ‘free day’ where you have an opportunity to look around the school and get to know everything. We’ll be having various class orientations open, so I would highly recommend going to check everything you can out, so to see what suits you best. Party formations will be taking place at the end of the day, so please keep that in mind, and auditions for those in theater will take place after school. I will leave you to your own devices to do as you will, and I wish you luck in finding your perfect fit.”

And with that, she stepped down from the stage and left the auditorium, prompting the other students to begin filing out of the area as well. Angela herself was already preparing to leave, with her shoving her notebook and pencil into her backpack, slinging her backpack over her shoulder, and grabbing her staff.

“Excuse me.”

She turned her head to the source of the voice, finding herself being addressed by the male high elf, who was leaning over just enough to see her while he spoke to her.

“If I’m not mistaken, I do believe I saw you in the library.”

Now that she was having a closer look at him, she realised that she herself had caught a glimpse of this person out of the corner of her eye while she was there.

Deciding to be honest, she simply nodded. 

“Alright, then. I was just curious.”

“Wait… you were in the library?”

The conversation was intercepted almost on the spot by the half-goblin sitting between them, her attention now focused on the kenku while the high elf was now taking his leave.

Again, Angela found herself nodding.

“Do you think you could help me find a particular kind of book?”

Silent annoyance already beginning to settle back into her temperament, Angela grabbed her notebook and pencil once more and flipped to the page where she had last written a note, the entire piece of paper covered in sentences stacked on top of one another as she proceeded to add another to the long list. Upon finishing, she flipped the notebook over so the other girl could see it.

_I couldn’t honestly tell you. I’ve only been there once, and I didn’t look beyond finding a couple of books that I was specifically searching for._

Remembering that she was still in a public area, Angela almost instinctively turned her head to the side enough to catch the human on her other side in her peripheral vision. While she was able to catch him moving his head away from her, she got nothing more from her aside glance, other than the fact that the auburn-skinned elf was long gone. She turned her head back fully to the person she was holding a conversation with. 

“Well, you’ve at least been there more times than I have… do you think you could help me get there?”

After taking a moment to stew in her resignation, she promptly stood up from where she sat and beckoned the half-goblin to follow her, ambling forward on her staff down the stairs.

Unfortunately, as she simultaneously set the bottom of her staff and her foot down, she had realised too late that she had misjudged how far her staff had gone forward, causing her to fall forward with a squawk of alarm from her (and a similar exclamation from everyone else) and tumble down the stairs before landing in a heap on the ground, her staff rolling out of her reach. The goblinoid ran down after her, helping the kenku up to her feet.

“Jesus, are you okay?”

She nodded.

“Nothing serious happened?”

She nodded again.

“Alright then, good. Good.”

“I think you dropped this.”

Both of them look forward at a leanly-muscled firbolg with a backpack on his shoulders, a water bottle in his left hand, and Angela’s staff in his right, with his right arm extended in an offering gesture, one which the kenku druid took as she wrapped her own right hand around the length of wood and fully propped herself back up with it. She pressed an open palm against her chest and bowed her head in a show of gratitude.

“My name’s David. What’s yours?”

Oh, joy. Here she was, without paper to write with and needing to make an introduction. Thankfully, it seemed that she didn’t have to ponder that particular predicament for long, as her current companion was more than happy to interject on her behalf.

“I don’t think she can really talk… or even likes talking to people that much. My name’s Dreeda, though.” 

She stepped forward, offering him her hand, which he eagerly took. Angela opted to at least greet him in the only way she really could and similarly offered her taloned hand, which David took once he was finished shaking Dreeda’s hand. 

“Well, I’m going to head off to some of the fighting tryouts. How about you guys?”

“I’ll probably go take a look at the sorcery orientations after a while- me and her are heading to the library to look for something first.”

“You think you guys will need any help?”

“No, I think we’re good. But thank you.”

“In that case, I’ll leave. Good luck on whatever you’re searching for.”

“You too, man. Hopefully we’ll see each other again.”

With a nod and a small smile, David left, leaving the two girls to their own business. 

“You ready?”

Angela simply nodded, her spirits lifted by the encounter with the other student, who was already a far cry from most of the people she had shared more than a few words with today- which pretty much boiled down to Dreeda. With her reaffirmation, they both left the assembly hall, stepping out into the hallway to look for the library.

Angela narrowed her eyes and looked around her for any possible sign or direction that pointed to the library from here- and just like last time, she found it almost immediately, her gaze immediately pinpointing a large blue square of plastic stuck to the upper hallway giving directions to the current direction that the library was in. 

She tapped the shoulder of her companion, and then pointed in the direction of the sign when she had the half-goblin’s attention.

“Ah hah, _perfect!_ Lead the way, wise one!”

And so she did, Angela walking forward and Dreeda following behind as they made their way through the halls. After a few twists and turns, with Angela admittingly not paying too much attention to where she was going, she marched forward towards a door.

She pushed her way through, and almost immediately collided with another body and was met with a facefull of burning liquid.

Screeching in pain and nearly dropping her staff as she clutched at her face, she made a one-eighty turn and hurriedly pushed her way out of the door, ignoring the hurricane of apologies coming from the person she had made contact with and stumbling back out into the main hallway.

“Sheez! You okay? What the hell happened?”

Hearing Dreeda make her way over to her, Angela could only bring herself to blindly flail an arm over in the direction from where she had come, still squawking in pain. 

“Huh? What about the… oh. Huh. It looks like you walked into the alchemy classroom. Not gonna lie, the room kind of looked too much like a classroom to be a library…”

Angela removed her other talon from her face and opened her eyes, the stinging having toned down enough to make it possible, and shot Dreeda a venomous glare.

“Hey, I’m not the one who didn’t know where she was going. Are you sure you know where the library is?”

Dreeda’s somewhat defensive expression briefly shifted to one of mild shock as she seemed to notice something in particular about Angela, before she brought a hand to her mouth, snorting in what was clearly an effort to suppress laughter.

“You look like a vulture, by the way.”

_‘What the fuck does she mean?’_

“Your face.”

Bringing her talons back to her face and around her head, Angela realised that whatever had splashed onto her face had burned away all of her feathers, leaving only the soft, smooth, and currently-raw skin underneath behind.

Thankfully, being a druid came with perks beyond just shapeshifting. Channeling a quick _druidcraft,_ she waved a talon over her face, and her face was overcome with a strange, tickling, fuzzy sensation as down and feathers regrew in seconds.

“Whoa! How did you do that? What spell was that?”

Opting to answer in the only way she really could, she cast _druidcraft_ again through her staff, and she had to admit to being satisfied watching the half-goblin’s face break out in further wonder as thin, delicate vines curled around the length of wood, coalescing into a bud at the top that quickly blossomed into a pink azalea.

“I’m going to guess that you’re a druid?”

Angela nodded.

“Cool, cool. You may have heard me say something about it before, but I’m a sorcerer- my Dad’s a powerful devil, and I have the magic to show for it.”

In demonstration, Dreeda seemingly clasped her hands together and pulled them back from one another, expanding outward a reverse pentagram for the kenku to see, before smashing her hands back together, crushing the projection, and bringing them up to face level to pull them apart, a brief puff of flame combusting outwards from from her parting hands.

_“Ta-da!_ And that’s the least I can do.”

There was silence.

“I suppose we should start heading over to the library now, huh?”

Without only a silent nod from the druid and a word from neither of them, Angela pressed ahead once more, Dreeda following behind. 

This time, Angela kept her head up to make sure she _could_ see where she was going.

**David**

“Fight!”

David adopted a fighting stance, just like he had countless times prior in boxing training, as the voice of Corsica Jones activated the training bot directly in front of him, the padded automaton jolting to life with a bounce in it’s steps. It mimed the loosening of shoulders before throwing a couple of air punches in a challenging gesture before adopting a combat stance of its own. On David’s own part, he had cast aside his shirt and backpack and was now wearing a pair of gym shorts, leaving his musculature easier to see now that he wore only an undershirt, as well as a mouthguard to protect his teeth from any punches he might take and a pair of boxing gloves. Both stood at their places for a moment, waiting for the other to make their move. 

Seemingly in sync, both moved towards each other, although when they finally got to each other, it was the training bot that threw the first punch. Unable to avoid the blow in time, David was decked in the face; its padded glove prevented the blow from being devastating, but it nonetheless hurt like hell. After taking a moment to collect himself, he threw a punch of his own, only for the bot to agilely avoid the blow. The training bot threw another punch, but David, prepared this time, blocked it with his arm before throwing his other arm forward. He succeeded in hitting the drone, causing it to stumble back a couple of paces, but nothing else.

Taking advantage of the bot’s distraction, David leapt forward and walloped the bot with three strikes while it was open to him. All made contact, but once again, nothing seemed to register within his opponent, who promptly retaliated with two punches of his own, both which David succeeded in evading. 

With the bot staggered after both it’s blows missed, David decided to try something new and came to its side, curling his arm around where it’s neck would be in an attempt to get it into a headlock- an attempt that succeeded, with David quickly overpowering and clinching the bot within his arm. David got another hit in as his opponent squirmed in his grasp, and while nothing satisfactory happened, the training bot was still struggling against David’s chokehold. It continued to writhe futilely as David kept slamming his other fist into the construct’s side and front, desperately trying to get some kind of reaction or notification out of the training bot. 

Finally, one blow seemed to strike home- as his fist made contact with the padded side of the bot, he felt something inside it rattle even harder than it did prior, and a dull _beep_ went off in David’s ear. He grinned. His first successful hit.

Only several dozen more to go, it seemed. 

However, seemingly in response to the first sign of its potential defeat, the drone found the strength to throw David over it’s back, breaking free of his chokehold almost effortlessly. His spirit renewed with his newest victory, however, David simply rolled back onto his feet and launched towards the bot again- and in a burst of adrenaline, rage, and exhilaration, socked the bot in where it’s face would be hard enough for him to hear something audibly shake within the construct, as well as causing it to lurch back a few steps and provoking a hushed gasp from the crowd. Another dull _beep_ went off. 

David stepped towards the bot, going for another two punches that sadly received no response- a definite mood-killer on his part. The bot took a couple swings of it’s own- the first soared over David’s head as he ducked down, but the bot simply took advantage of said head’s placement and delivered an upcut that sent stars swirling through the firbolg’s brain. 

Struggling to stay standing even as he pressed forward, David threw another punch that, amazingly enough, given his stupor, caused the training bot to recoil as another _beep_ notified him of another success. His mind clearing somewhat with the sound of success, he threw yet another punch which, to his increasing glee, _also_ seemed to land it’s mark- a contentment that quickly died when, like lightning, the drone darted forward, hitting with a swing to the left cheekbone that caused him to take a couple of steps to the side and his vision to swim again.

With another burst of strength that this time seemed to originate from pure instinct than anything involving confidence, he simply threw himself forward once more and lashed out with a final straightforward punch to the face, this time straight-up knocking the training bot off of its feet, much to the auditory surprise of everyone watching. 

The training bot continued to lie there on the ground, continuously repeating that same droning beep that went off every time it had registered one of his hits. David couldn’t even bring himself to completely process everything going on at present until he heard the voice of Corsica Jones once more.

“Beat the shit out of good ol’ Adam in just a couple of minutes... that’s an Academy record, kid. A lot of the hand-to-hand fighters I meet on the first day have a hard time even taking him down at all. I mean, you had looked like someone who did their exercise, but still… damn…”

“Yeah.” He replied, still fairly zoned out. “I box. A lot.”

Seemingly realising that David wasn’t exactly in the most conversational state at the moment, the human warrior was courteous enough to take the firbolg by one of his shoulders and help him leave the ring, bringing him back to his seat while attracting the amazed gaze of everyone else in the room. 

As David took his seat, doffed his gloves and put his shirt back on (noticing the blood from his lip that now lightly stained the collar of his shirt), he noticed the fighter instructor pull a bright yellow can out of her pocket. She set it into his hands, allowing him to shift it with his thumbs to read a thick, blue text.

_Carbonated Potion Of Heroism: Pineapple Flavored_

“Keep it. I usually give it to the guy who does the best performance- and if breaking a record isn’t a top performance, I don’t know what is. Unless, of course, someone somehow succeeds in outdoing you by the time this orientation is done.”

He simply nodded, still somewhat in an absentminded state. “Thanks.”

“No problem- you earned it. How about you look around the rest of the school, see whatever else you can about it?”

Another mindless nod, as he shoved the drink into his backpack. “Sure.”

“Then I’ll be seeing you tomorrow for class. I have a feeling that I’m going to enjoy having you as my student this year.”

She then left, calling for the next student in line to try their hand against “Adam” as it was so called. Still somewhat dazed out of his mind, David slung his backpack over his shoulders and left the gymnasium, trundling back towards the school in the warm autumn air. Once he passed a pair of heavy doors into the main Academy building, he made it his first incentive to find a water fountain- a drink would do wonders in clearing his head.

Taking a half-hearted look around and finding nothing, he simply decided to walk throughout the school in hopes of eventually stumbling upon one. 

“You haven’t changed out of your gym shorts yet.”

Rapidly turning where he stood, he saw a dark-skinned, pale-haired human male who appeared to be as physically fit as he was directly behind him, still decked in his own gym shorts while clutching David’s normal ones in his left hand. He tossed them to the firbolg, who failed to catch them in time as they flew into and blanketed his face. They fell to the ground after a second, David once more failing to catch them as they fumbled in his waiting hands, forcing him to kneel down and pick them up off of the floor. Slinging them on his shoulders, he returned his focus to the other boy in front of him. 

“How long were you following me for?”

“Only ever since I noticed you left your shorts here.”

“Oh. Well, thank you, then.”

Giving another nod of gratitude, the young firbolg turned in his place, preparing to leave again.

“Mind if I accompany you? I’m interested in meeting new faces here, and I’m already here with you.”

The firbolg turned back around to the other young man who had spoken. 

“What about you? Don’t you still need to take your turn against… Adam, I think she called it?”

“Eh, Miss Jones won’t be checking up on me for a while. My last name starts with an M, so it’ll be a hot minute before I’m missed.”

“Well, in that case… well, I was only trying to find a water fountain, but sure- I’d love to have the company.”

A bright smile breaking out on his face, the human proceeded to follow, siding up next to him- and David once more couldn’t help but notice the reality that he was about a head and a half taller than his new companion, the reminder of his great height- especially right next to a complete stranger- causing his face to flush in embarrassment. His other half didn’t seem to notice, even as they turned their head to address him once again.

“So, what’s your story? What brings you to the Academy?”

“It’s kind of simple, really- I’m actually not all that interested in the adventuring part of things. I’m working towards being a boxer, and on top of the training I’m already getting in classes, my Dad thought Aguefort would be the best way to go regarding further training, mainly through their fighter and monk classes. How about you?”

“Training to be a wizard. Everyone’s childhood fantasy, I suppose, except I’m making mine come true. I originally worked as an apprentice for a down-on-her-luck green hag in Bastion City before I moved to Elmville- from there, I was able to get into Aguefort.”

“Sounds like quite the tale- though that doesn’t really explain why you're in Miss Jones’ class.”

“Like I said, I used to live in Bastion City- things can get pretty rough down there. Gotta be fit enough to punch your way out of a scuffle or run like the wind. And besides, I figured,” He stated, before bringing up his right arm and using his left hand, a fuschia ring on its ring finger, to squeeze the well-developed muscle it packed, a confident smirk curling upwards on his face, “why let all this go to waste?”

As David continued to entertain the other young man’s boasting, his gaze remaining on his companion’s flexing, he felt someone run directly into him, accompanied by a hollow _thunk_ and a grunt of surprise from both himself and a feminine voice.

“Hey! Watch where you’re--”

The female stopped speaking, prompting him to look down at the source- an orange-brown elf with hair the same color except darker, and from what he could tell, he was nearly twice as tall as her- and the look on her face told him that she knew it too.

“Sorry.” He apologized, stepping back to give the girl some room. “I didn’t see you coming.”

She didn’t respond, her gaze shifting to the side and turning her attention to the other boy beside him. “Oh. Hey, Charlie.”

“Pleased to see you too, Adrie. Where may you be going?”

“I’m just trying to find where bard classes are.”

She took a look back at David, her eyes briefly scanning him up and down and a smirk coming to her face. To his wonder, rivulets of vibrant green began snaking over her skin and weaving themselves through her hair.

“You know, you’re pal here doesn’t look half bad either, now that he isn’t right in my face and everything.”

David felt blood rushing to his face once again, averting his eyes away from the elf shyfully. This seemed to elicit a chuckle out of Charlie.

“Easy, Adrie. Even if he _would_ be into you, you haven’t even asked him out for dinner yet.”

“Do… do you two know each other?”

“Yeah… if having talked once and knowing each other’s names counts as knowing each other.” The elf replied, her smile shifting into a frown as she moved her eyes back towards Charlie, the green lines tracing her skin and hair shifting into a golden color and her irises beginning to radiate a soft glow. “Well, that and stealing my crystal.”

“Conveniently leaving out the fact that you advanced on me when I already told you I wasn’t interested.” 

Adrie, as Charlie had called her, said no more, merely averting her gaze while her body nonetheless remained in its almost gilded state. However, the rest of her more than spoke for her; her frown tensed, the veins of gold stretching over her body widened and began to weakly glow as well, her irises seemingly swallowed up her pupils in blue, and her eyes were now shining with an even greater intensity.

“Say, Adrie, didn’t you mention having trouble finding the bard classes?”

And with that, all of the gold and light vanished, Adrie returning to her previous state in full almost immediately as her other concern returned to her attention. 

“Oh yeah. Yeah, I’ve just been looking around, and I can’t really find anything.”

“Go west, take a turn at the east after a short distance, turn west again after a little while, then go straight from there until you reach the end of the hall.”

She took a brief look over at the general area where her first turn would be, before giving a nod and turning back to them. 

“Alright, I’ll see where that takes me.”

She then left, turning on her heel and heading towards where Charlie had designated, and it was only with her back exposed that David caught sight of a guitar slung over her shoulder, hollow bounces occurring each time it shifted against her backpack. She was gone in little time.

David, on his own part, had nothing to say, really- a silence that his companion, now that it was just them once more, was happy to break.

“Speechless, huh? You into her?”

David wouldn’t lie, Adrie was good-looking... but _into_ her? That he couldn’t quite say.

“I… don’t know. I mean, she’s pretty, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’m interested beyond that.”

Charlie chuckled, and the firbolg felt a hand fall on his right shoulder. 

“Don’t sweat about it too much. You’ll have plenty of time to figure it out, I’m sure. And as you may have heard, her first impression with _me_ was about as subtle as a _fireball-_ but, I digress. If you like her, act on it, and if you don’t, then don’t- that’s my advice.”

David felt the hand on his shoulder pat down on it twice, before Charlie began walking forward, pulling a crystal out of his pocket and tossing it upwards into the air repeatedly, catching it with one hand. 

“Well, I’m gonna head back to class now. I wouldn’t want to be gone too long, especially if everyone else’s odds of beating Adam really are as slim as Miss Jones said they were.”

He then departed, walking back from where he had come. 

_‘He seems nice enough… maybe it’ll be nice having him as a classmate.’_

“That son of a bitch!”

Coming at top speed out of the west corner was what could only be described as a fireball of gold and blue hurtling towards where the two had stood just a moment before. It was only when it stopped moving that David was able to process that the fireball in question was Adrie- her entire body was covered in a film of gold and radiated heat and light that wouldn’t be abnormal for a roaring campfire, and her eyes were completely featureless pools of blue, shining just as brilliantly as the rest of her body. 

Her teeth were gritted as she spoke to the firbolg in a snarl. “Where did Charlie go?”

“That way.”

With the affirmation, Adrie took off again, nothing more but a flash as she disappeared down the hall.

David smelled something burning, and looked down to see that her footprints had left smoking black marks where they had made contact with the ground. 

With that, he turned where he stood and set out to spend his time on other things, even as cursing began to echo throughout the school as two teenagers fought over a crystal.

**Dreeda**

“Are you planning on eating that jello?”

Dreeda looked up from the book she was reading and turned her head to the person who had spoken- an aquamarine-blue elf with ruffled hair and a black eye who was wearing a red shirt. 

The tiefling looked back to her mostly-empty lunch tray, with its only remaining dish being the sizable blob of green gelatin in one of the bigger compartments. Taking a fork and stabbing the glob, she attempted to pull the piece of silverware out of the mass. Her first attempt failed, the fork sticking fast within the goop and failing to keep her grip on the handle as she pulled as hard as she could, nearly falling over as she effectively yanked her own hand away from the fork. Calling upon her infernal magic, Dreeda’s body swelled with muscle as she tapped into her latent power before reaching for the fork and trying again. This time she succeeded, tearing the fork out of the gelatinous mass effortlessly. 

Her eyes flicked back to the elf, fork still in hand, and she saw that her skin was now spiderwebbed with vibrant green, her face flushed an even darker green and her eyes fixated on the half-demon intently. Dreeda felt a smirk come to her face.

“Like what you see?”

“Yeah.” She bluntly stated, nodding dumbly.

Her response elicited a short laugh from the tiefling, who set the fork back down onto the tray and slid it over to the elf.

“Here you go. Good luck trying to eat it, though.”

With that, she returned her attention to her book, continuing to scan the pages and leaving the student across from her to her own business. 

Within the ample time that had passed by this point, Dreeda had tried to get more information on who Bill and Ruth were; seeing as how her father knew of them, she had wagered on the possibility that they were denizens of Hell, especially given that his father had spoken to “Bill” as though he were a business partner or superior. With that in mind, she had gone to the library with a raven-girl druid she had met in the assembly hall (who had left the goblin tiefling to her own devices after leading her there, for what Dreeda assumed was to head over to the druid orientations) and had asked the weird octopus-person librarian if he had any books about beings from Hell. To her satisfaction, he did- _The Lower Planes And The Assholes Who Live There For Dummies_ , penned by the school’s principal Arthur Aguefort (though the librarian warned that it was likely outdated). 

After sitting down at a library table and reading it for a little bit- and by reading, she meant skimming through the pages of the “Named Fiends” section of each of the seven Lower Planes that the book covered in hopes of catching a name- she, to her _dis_ satisfaction, saw no mention of a Bill nor a Ruth, lending credence to the librarian’s claims barring the possibility that they simply _weren’t_ there... although she did catch a glimpse of her father’s name in “Named Fiends- Baator”, not that she focused too long on it. 

After her initial failure to find what she was searching for, she decided that she should start heading over to the sorcerer orientations, asking for the librarian’s permission to borrow the book- permission that he had granted in the most curt, professional way possible before burying his nose (tentacles?) back into his own book- before making her way there. Upon her arrival, she had been asked to offer various demonstrations of her sorcerous capabilities to the class’ instructor, Jace Stardiamond, which she did eagerly. 

Dreeda’s mind drifted to the teacher of what would be her primary class. The guy had seemed nice enough, though the truth was that she doubted that she’d actually invest any effort into attending the class- all the magic she had at her command was something she had learned to discover and control at her own pace and volition (with a little help from her father, when he discovered what she was capable of); sorcery was something that one effectively taught themselves, and she intended to keep it that way. Thankfully, when she had asked around to her fellow classmates with this sentiment in mind, everyone seemed to recognise this simple fact, with sophomores, juniors and seniors affirming that Jace was less of a teacher and more of a mentor who you could discuss things with whenever the heck you wanted or needed to, though the idea still was that you made the effort to hone and expand your abilities and check up with the teacher somewhat regularly on your progress. Remarkably little to ask in a class from one of the Solace’s most prestigious schools, and largely leaving her seven free hours to fuck up shit however she liked on school grounds; Dreeda decided that being obligated to pop in every now and again was little skin off of her bones, especially since she was given the privilege of developing her powers at her own personal stride. 

After that was said and done, she had decided to simply head back to the library and take the time to look more into her book. She considered carving a picture into a stall wall in the lady’s room when she passed by the bathrooms, but ultimately chose to respect what her father had told her earlier today, at least on the first day of school. 

And after an hour or two of continued failure to find any sign of a Bill or Ruth in the tome she was paging through (not helping was the apparent lack of a glossary or index, for some reason), the bell for lunch had rang, and now here she sat- a belly full of school food and still looking through this book for any sign of the people- or rather, beings, most likely- her father had spoken of. 

“Is it just me, or is this jello… _moving?”_

“The school food isn't _that_ bad. If you don’t want to eat it, then just don’t eat it.”

“No, I’m being serious. Look.”

Dreeda looked back up at the elf, the jade green spiderwebbing across her skin now more prominent and equally blended with the aquamarine blue that had predominantly colored her body before, although her expression was now one of bewilderment instead of desire, the verdant blush illuminating her face now gone. She jabbed the mound of gelatin with the fork. While it jigged in place after being prodded, nothing else seemed to happen. 

“Looks fine to me.” 

Seeming to not listen, the elf stabbed the jello a second time.

And it responded by ripping the fork out of her hands, eliciting a shriek of fright from the girl, before throwing it off to the side and lashing out at her with a tendril of jello. 

More screams and shouts of terror and alarm rang out throughout the classroom, prompting Dreeda to look around her and bear witness to servings of jello across the cafeteria coming to life and beginning to attack their would-be eaters. 

Looking back to the elf girl, she saw that she had leap out of the way before the living jello could touch her, confusion and panic written on her face and her skin a churning chaos of gold and blue. The glob of gelatin seemed to turn around to take a look at her, and before Dreeda could finish fully processing what was going on, the jello lunged towards her, it’s mass outstretched as it splattered onto her arm. Said arm exploded into an agonizing, burning pain that provoked a shout from the tiefling, who ripped off the dessert food from her arm to see that, even with her fiendish hide, it was now inflamed and continued to sting like acid. The hand that she had used to remove it wasn’t as bad, but it still throbbed, and it still hurt to an ungodly degree. 

Hearing a shrill caw, Dreeda snapped her head to the side to behold a glob of jello now splattering itself across the face of the druid that she had met earlier a couple of tables ahead of hers. Shrieking painfully the whole while, the raven-girl succeeded in removing the offending creature, her head now back to looking like it did after their run-in with the alchemy classroom minus a few weathered patches of down that the ooze had failed to burn off. Even after the removal, however, the druid seemed terrified in a way that was league above even the other students, recoiling with eyes practically bulging out of their sockets, positioning their staff in front of them threateningly and holding tight a garbage can lid that she had failed to notice prior like a shield, probing her immediate vicinity for any of the jello monsters planning an attack. 

Only a table ahead of the druid was the firbolg that she had also talked with back in the auditorium, having taken a combative stance against a jello blob that was preparing to leap straight at him, it’s form bunched up and low profile. When it did jump forward, however, the firbolg sidestepped it with practiced ease, before reassuming his defensive position and keeping his eyes peeled for any others.

Hearing footsteps, Dreeda’s gaze flicked over to a blonde elf in a business suit and decked with weaponry that she didn’t recognise… actually, no. She did. He had been in the auditorium too- he had asked the raven-druid about having been to the library, if she recalled correctly. All of that beside, he was currently being held on to by one of the acid jellos, his face visibly in a grimace of pain as he batted it off of his suit, stumbling toward their table in the process. Dreeda noted with concern the now acid-worn sleeves on his dress shirt. 

_‘Is the food_ actually _that bad?’_

Dreeda looked back to the elf, who was making the effort to cautiously put as much distance between her and the jello monsters as humanly possible, with the one that had burned Dreeda now sliding it’s way towards the frightened girl.

“Does anyone have something to kill this with?!”

“Here! Take this!”

At the male elf’s voice, Dreeda looked over to witness the dapperly-dressed teen unclip his rapier and toss it to the girl, who promptly tore off the sheathe and swung the thin blade of the sword towards the hostile gelatin in a wide arc, missing her target by an inch or two in her panicked frenzy.

“That’s not how you use a rapier!”

“Don’t patronize me!”

Dreeda heard a loud “hi-yah!” causing her to turn her head back towards the firbolg, who had punched one of the jellos while holding a shortsword in his other hand, his punch causing it to explode in a spray of fruit-colored sludge. He followed up his blow with a shortsword swing, lopping off a sizable portion of the sludge that fell to the tile with a wet _splat_. Despite the various droplets and pieces of the creature that were missing, now only adding to the carnage taking place in the lunchroom, it still collected itself back together for the most part and prepared to lash out at the young man once more, who had since then recoiled and begun flailing his hand about, a visible expression of pain on his face. 

Another ear-piercing squawk, and Dreeda’s focus was back on the druid, whose eyes and veins, as well as the grains and lines of her staff, were now glowing with a vibrant green power, her walking stick clutched in two hands as she swung at one of the jello creatures that had advanced at her like a baseball… and missed utterly, with the amorphous being almost tauntingly shifting it’s mass backwards to avoid the strike. 

Dreeda’s attention was diverted once more by a scream, and she turned her head to see that the jello closest to her had advanced on the elf girl and had thrown itself at her face, with the latter now clawing at it wildly in an effort to get it off, further cries of agony smothered by the foodstuff that was effectively trying to melt her face off. She eventually succeeded, tearing the glob of goo off of her face and recklessly throwing it in the opposite direction- and straight towards Dreeda herself, who barely had enough time to duck with a yelp of equal parts fright and annoyance as the blob wizzed over her head and slammed onto the table behind them, small droplets and chunks of gelatin spraying about the instant it landed. 

“Watch it, long ears!”

“Says the goblin!”

Before Dreeda could retort further, she felt something sticky and acidic slam into the back of her head as green slime filled her field of vision. Shouting out in rage, she furiously began trying to dig out the jello now coating her hair, forehead, and face, ultimately resorting to scooping off and throwing down small chunks of the menace one by one, the creature coalescing together once more as it’s separated pieces hit the ground. She was able to blink jello residue out of her eyes soon enough to witness the male elf staggering back, one of the jello creatures now clinging to one of his legs as he flailed it around vigorously in an effort to shake it off. 

Looking back down at the jello she had scraped off of her, which was already preparing to leap up at her again, Dreeda called upon her latent infernal power, furnace-like heat boiling up within her stomach, up through her chest and throat, and then finally out of her mouth and nose in a blast of firebreath that roasted the jello creature, it’s form popping and sizzling as the moisture within it either evaporated or burnt itself into the floor, it’s exterior and even most of it interior becoming charred and blackened as it recoiled back in what outwardly seemed to be pain. When she ceased her attack, the creature tried to ooze away, still somewhat burning and now looking more like a glob of flowing lava than anything edible, the acrid smell of burnt gelatin emanating from it, as well as whatever of its mass had been burned to the floor.

Dreeda heard a wolf-whistle and returned her attention to the elf girl, her skin fully bathed in a jade green once more, her face a darker emerald and her eyes wide, nodding her head appreciatively.

“For some reason, that was… _riveting…_ ”

Yet another smirk broke out onto Dreeda’s face, with her this time baring her sharpened teeth. “You wanted to say ‘hot’, didn’t you?”

Streaks of gold began to dart across the elf’s skin as her expression hardened, her eyes glowing lightly in irritation.

“I think you can understand why I _didn’t._ ”

There was a metallic _click,_ and both of them turned their heads in enough time to witness the sharply-dressed male elf dipping a flintlock pistol down towards a tumbling jello monster, which was followed by a thunderous bang as the gun went off in a cloud of smoke and sparks.

The tile floor directly beside the blob he was aiming at lit up with sparks for a second, followed by a couple of audible twangs and a cry of shock as the bullet presumably ricocheted off of a few surfaces before hitting a random student. Dreeda couldn’t help but feel her face fall in annoyance at his incompetence, and a quick look back at the elf showed that she shared her sentiment, her skin now an even blend of gold and blue and her eyes still illuminated. The elf boy, still holding the gun, returned their looks with one of irritation.

“Nice shot, Legolas.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“It’s not even _five fucking feet_ away from you!”

“How am I supposed to hit a target less than five feet away from me?!”

“How _aren’t_ you supposed to hit a target less than five feet away from you?!” 

As she finished her complaint, the other girl’s softly-glowing eyes flicked down from where they rested on the other elf to the floor below her, and Dreeda looked down in kind to see the animated jello that she had oven-style burned had weakly crawled it’s way over to her. Taking her newly-acquired sword, the elf took another swing at the food with her rapier, tearing what little remained of it asunder with her swipe as sparks flew across the ground with a hideous screech where the point made contact with the tile, the glob of molten gelatin exploding apart in a flurry of burnt, rubbery gel. 

“I said that’s not how you-”

“You shut up.”

A shortsword suddenly flew onto the table, startling the tiefling as it bounced a few times before sliding onto the floor, prompting her to look back towards the firbolg, who was looking over at them, one of his hands still curled in a grasping hold over nothing. He raised up his hands apologetically, an expression of remorse on his face even as the jello monster he was fending off was slithering it’s way towards him.

“Sorry about that! Nobody got hurt, right?”

Not waiting for a response, he soon returned his attention to the appetiser about to attack him, bunching his shoulders and producing an audible crack in each one before getting into another defensive position, both fists balled up once again.

Dreeda heard a wet smacking sound and was able to witness yet another jello glop land onto her table, ample amounts of gelatin exploding outward as it made contact with the table. Following the direction it came from, Dreeda bore witness to the raven-girl druid tensed up, her chest heaving heavily and eyes glaring at the clump of food she had batted away, the top of her walking stick now noticeably more jello-covered that it had been prior. The noise of squelching brought her back to the jello monster now in her vicinity, which was rising up again and inching over to her. 

_‘Well, shit.’_

The jello blob threw itself at her, and Dreeda failed to move out of the way in time before the creature splattered itself across her face. Her field was briefly smothered in an opaque green and pain ravaged the synapses in her face… and then, all was black. 

For a moment, Dreeda felt nothing as unconsciousness set in. Then, she felt a strong, comforting warmth spread throughout her body, and she jolted awake with a gasp. After a moment of disorientation, she found herself looking up at the elf girl, her skin amber, hair bronze, and eyes closed in concentration, one of them still surrounded by black after.. whatever it was that had happened to her. This sight came with the realization that she was lying on the floor and the jello no longer covered her face, the only trace of it’s prior presence being the moisture covering it, and as the rest of her senses returned to her, she felt something pushed down on her, causing her to look down at her chest to see that the elf was pushing down on it, and channeling a strange orange energy into her body that dulled the burning pain and throbbing that was now accosting a fair percentage of her body, seemingly the source of the warmth that was washing over her. 

On top of that, her throat wasn’t hurting as much anymore from her stupid attempt to eat fire earlier that day. 

Looking back up to her healer, she witnessed the elf opening her eyes, her body swirling into a twisting blend of blue and copper and her eyes filled with worry.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

The girl rose, taking Dreeda with her as they both got back on their feet. The two stood right in front of each other for a moment, allowing Dreeda to take in that this elf was actually quite a bit _shorter_ than Dreeda herself.

They didn’t have any more time between them before they both heard loud, heavy footsteps coming towards them, prompting them to turn towards the source and see firsthand the firbolg coming straight towards their table, arriving at their table and slamming down one of his fists on top of the jello creature from before, splattering it utterly against the table surface. It didn’t reform. He recoiled his hand immediately afterward, clutching his wrist and blowing on it feverishly. His eyes flicked over to his sword, and after taking another second or so to nurse his acid-burned hand, he reached over and grabbed it, sliding it into a small scabbard with no belt attachment that he procured from the inside of his shirt.

Just before a familiar walking stick whirled around into the back of his head, accompanied by a shrill, avian shriek of frustration, causing him to drop his sword with a grunt of surprise and turn to look behind him, with Dreeda’s gaze following his to see that the raven girl was now running over to where her walking stick had gone, successfully catching a jello slime on her garbage lid shield and throwing it off of her as she started her sprint over to their table. 

Meanwhile, the sharply-dressed elf was still struggling with the jello ooze he had failed to kill for some time now, with the creature once again grappling the leg it had eaten through with it’s acid prior, further deteriorating the fabric of his dress pants and eventually touching his skin as he tried to kick the mound of sludge off of him. Dreeda recoiled with a hiss as she felt acid burn her own legs, looking down to see that another jello, likely from another table entirely, had snuck up on her and was now enveloping itself around her legs. Fury clouding her mind once more, Dreeda once again drew upon her innate infernal magic, this time causing her fingers to transform into long, bony claws at the tips, thick upward-pointing horns bursting out of the sides of her head, and her already-sharp teeth growing in length and becoming more needle-like. She tore at her legs with her newly-grown claws, not even caring anymore about how she was burning herself as she dug into the jello and ripped out copious hunks of the creature clinging to her in a series of reckless claw swipes.

She had just finished ripping into the gelatin creature when she heard another gunshot ring out… followed by more ricochets, another grunt that suggested the bullet had hit someone that wasn’t the intended target, and an exasperated, “Come _on!”_. The girl beside her barked a laugh at the other elf’s expense, her skin flushed with a blend of green and gold and her eyes glowing once again.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how you use a gun!”

“I’m a politician, not a soldier, alright?!” 

“That much was clear, with those pretentious clothes of yours.” 

_“Shut up!”_

Adrie’s gaze fell to the floor once again, looking to the jello that Dreeda had torn apart and that was now reforming. With but a step forward, rapier in hand, she leaned forward on one leg en pointe and ran it through with her blade, before ripping it out viciously and taking a sizable chunk of gelatin with it. This was almost immediately followed by the firbolg jumping in out of practically nowhere and stomping down on it with one foot, completely smashing the rest of the jello. Like the one he had crushed before, it didn’t start repairing itself.

The elf gave an appreciative whistle at the sight, the gold fading into more green and her face flushing again, with her biting her lip. “I wouldn’t mind a little of that myself, coming from you…”

The young man’s fighting resolve evaporated the instant the comment registered, his expression falling and face darkening as she seemed to shrink down shyly.

“Relax, I’m kidding.” The girl chuckled. “Mostly.”

“You’re getting turned on by us fighting _jello._ What is so sexually stimulating about us fighting _fucking jello?”_

Dreeda’s incredulity was met with a nonchalant shrug by the elf. “Hey, if I like what I see, I like what I see.”

There was a growl of frustration, causing all four myriad adventurers to take a look at the ooze now clinging to the other pant leg of the elf boy, whose flailing efforts to get the creature off of him now seemed more laughably pathetic than anything close to admirable or determined. Visibly enraged at this point, he drew a shortsword kept in a scabbard hooked to his belt and swung downward onto his pant leg in an effort to basically slice off the offending side dish, his pistol still clutched in his other hand. Unlike his previous two efforts to kill the thing at a range, this time his newfound recklessness paid off, chopping the creature free of him… while also tearing off a sizable portion of his pant leg as well, leaving his shin on that leg even more exposed than it was on the other leg through tattered, acid-weathered holes. Not that he seemed to care at that point, skipping backwards aways from the lump of sludge and jabbing an index finger at it, letting loose with a single harsh, vindictive laugh.

_“Suck on that,_ mystery meat!”

Simply rolling her eyes, Dreeda casually strided over to the ooze preoccupied with eating away at the fabric that it had been chopped off with, and before the one responsible could gloat about it any further, she blasted the jello slime with a cone of fire projected from one of her hands, incinerating the creature effortlessly and reducing it to another weird-smelling stain on the tile floor.

The equal parts indignant and deadpan expression on his face made it worth it, and she snorted at his reaction, as well as her success in provoking it. 

“Step out of the way, please.”

While confused, she decided to entertain what he had planned and followed his request. Raising his gun again, he popped off one last shot into the stain that used to be the his gelatinous foe, causing the bullet to bounce off the stain, fly through the open metal doors of the lunchroom, and travel down the halls with great speed, each consecutive reflection of the bullet making less and less noise until a female voice was heard cursing somewhere farther back into the school. Seemingly no longer caring that he had inadvertently harmed yet another occupant of the building, the male elf simply stowed his weapons and went to sit back down at her table, wallowing in self-pity. 

With the immediate threats to her life gone, Dreeda could now process that the entire cafeteria had quieted down significantly. She looked behind her and saw that everyone else had managed to fight off their own gelatinous attackers just fine, with the entire lunch hall being coated in splattered gelatin and the occasional blood stain, and everything carrying the distinct smells of fruit, copper, and smoke, the very latter presumably from other guns that had been set off in the food fight- noises that she had drowned out in her adrenaline rush. 

“Already, the school’s newest adventurers are engaging in acts of glorious carnage. Truly an exceptional way to begin the year.”

Turning back around once again, Dreeda was greeted with the image of the school’s principal, Arthur Aguefort, standing in front of the opened doors with his arms crossed behind his back, a contented smile on his bearded face.

“How long have you been there?”

“Not long. I watched the whole thing through a crystal ball, and once it was done, I simply teleported from my office to here.”

“That’s… definitely not creepy. Wait, you just let _this_ happen?” Dreeda inquiring, gesturing to the chaos that had unfolded throughout the lunchroom. “Did you _plan_ for this?”

“No… but who would I be to deny my pupils an opportunity to flex their combat skills whenever they can?”

Dreeda looked around at the other four students who were closest to her, and saw that they were just as utterly bamboozled as she was.

“Actually, Mr. Aguefort… I think I have an explanation.”

Dreeda recognised the voice; it was that dragonborn cop that had introduced the principal for his big speech earlier in the day, and who had dismissed them to attend their classes. Sure enough, her head and right shoulder soon popped out of the frame of the doorway to better address the old wizard, her face strangely covered in blood and gore.

“Our camera guy caught this creep dumping something shady into the jello not long before the lunch bell, and I went to go get him to see what he was up to. From what I saw, I thought that he had just spiked the stuff and was hoping to poison the students en masse, but when I actually caught him, he had... _this_ on him instead.”

The half-dragon tossed Aguefort a stoppered potion bottle, who caught it effortlessly. His smile faded and became replaced with a far more serious and ponderous look as he looked down at the bottle, and it’s tape label- whatever it was that it said. Speaking an incantation and drawing a rune-encrusted spell circle around his face, his eyes then lit up with bright arcane power, and his inquiring look only deepened. He nodded in regards to the bottle, before taking a sweeping look through the cafeteria and nodding contemplatively once more. 

“Yes… this is definitely interesting. Hmm. I am going to have to check the library for something after school today. As for our perpetrator, do you think you’d be able to get any information out of him regarding this?”

“About that... the problem is, he’s dead.”

Grunting with exertion, the school liaison pulled herself further into view, revealing that she was dragging a limp, scruffy man in ratty clothes who currently sported a fresh hole between his now-empty eyes, thin streaks of blood running down his face and far more copious amounts of blood dripping from the back of his head. 

_‘Well, that explains her face, at least.’_

“You see, I had apprehended the guy and was bringing him back when I heard a gunshot. Next thing I know, his brains are blown out across my face.”

Within the corner of her peripheral vision, Dreeda caught the sharply-dressed elf planting his face into the table.

“Well, that certainly does complicate things. Fortunately, I have just the solution for that.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, Aguefort procured a ball of fire surrounded by flaming feathers the size of his hand out of her jacket, and looked at it contemplatively.

“There are times where great magic can work wonders… the egg of the last phoenix provides such powerful magic, granting the ability to resurrect the dead… however, death will exact it’s price.”

With that said, Aguefort pulled out a revolver, pulled back the hammer, and to the utter horror of everyone in the lunchroom, put the barrel to his head.

_“Wait!_ That won’t be necessary, Mr. Aguefort! I have… dabbled a bit in healing magic. I can have him brought back to life as soon as tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Why not today?”

“I can’t use my abilities at the moment. Some stupid kids in the alchemy classroom knocked over a jar of nitroglycerin, so I already had to use my spells to bring a couple of kids back to life. Rest assured, I will be able to resurrect him so he can be interrogated in a timely fashion.”

“ ... Are you sure you don’t want me to use the phoenix egg?”

“Yes, I am sure. It is not necessary for you to kill yourself for the sake of this man.”

“If you insist.”

To everyone’s relief, Aguefort removed the gun from his temple and stowed it in his pocket, and slipped the phoenix egg back into the depths of his corduroy jacket.

“If nothing else, allow me to take this man off of your hands so you can attend other matters until then.”

Aguefort spoke another incantation and drew another circle of runes in the air, and the man’s body vanished from the dragonborn’s grasp in a pulse of light, much to the cop’s surprise.

“What did you-”

“His body has been sequestered away until you regain your spellcasting ability. Whenever you may wish, you may call for his body to be returned at your current location so that you may be able to resurrect him at whatever time you see fit. As for me, it is about time that I begin forming adventuring parties for all of our freshmen- especially for ones already so full of promise on their first day.”

With that, Aguefort vanished in a flash of light, spiriting himself off to parts unknown within the school. The school liaison took a moment to collect herself, before clearing her throat and fully entering the lunchroom, composing herself enough to properly address the students before her.

“Alright, you heard Aguefort. Lunch is officially over- everyone return to your lockers and collect your things, clean yourself up if need be, visit the nurse or ask a student with healing magic if you need medical attention- you are expected to meet in the auditorium in half an hour for the formation of your parties. I will be contacting the Elmville Police to get what happened here looked into as soon as possible.”

She then left, leaving the students in the lunchroom to mumble and chat in subdued discussion over the string of events that had taken place within the past few minutes. Dreeda turned back to the elf girl, clearing her throat to get her attention. She succeeded, the other girl turning her head to her.

“Yes?”

“Whatever it was you did to wake me up… was that some kind of healing spell? Because I feel a lot better- and I don’t mean just where those jello things touched me. I got a sore throat this morning, and when you cast that spell or used whatever power that was, that started to feel better too.”

That wasn’t the full truth, but she obviously didn’t want to risk the elf’s ridicule by admitting that she tried to swallow a bead of fire because she thought she could handle it as a half-devil- Sol knows that she had already reduced the other elf in the room to a verbal punching bag over his own blunders just a short while ago. 

“Yeah, it was a healing spell. You went limp and fell over when one of those things tried to give you a facial, so I figured you were _really_ hurt at that point.”

“Yeah… I guess so… you a cleric or something?”

She giggled. “No. I’m an eladrin, which means my powers are innate- I just need to master my abilities. I’m hoping to be an actress, singer, and songwriter, though, so I signed up for bard classes.” 

“Cool, cool… might I know your name?”

“Adrie Primrose. You?”

“Dreeda Gukgak.”

Adrie’s eyes lit up in recognition. _“Gukgak?_ As in the world-renowned detective Gukgak? You're related to him?”

“Half-brother on my mother’s side.”

“If that’s the case… then who’s the lucky devil who managed to sweep your mom off her feet?”

“Gorthalax The Insatiable.”

Dreeda admitted that Adrie’s initial response elicited an ample amount of pride within the tiefling, which only grew when Adrie’s eyes widened further, green beginning to streak across her body in excitement.

“The father of _Fig Faeth?”_

“Yup. I’ve got two of the Bad Kids, as well as well-known folks in their own right, in my family tree.” 

Dreeda broke out into a prideful, sharp-toothed grin, only to notice Adrie’s face fall and her expression shift into one of unease.

“Y’know, your show of self-confidence would be a little more appealing if you _weren’t_ full devil right now.”

_‘Crap, that’s right- I never did shift back to normal, did I?’_

Dreeda’s devilish features retracted back into her body, her appearance reverting back to normal in an instant. She kept the transmutative magic that allowed her to go full pit fiend active, however, in the event that she would need it again sometime soon. She began to notice the other students beginning to file out of the lunchroom, including the firbolg and druid girl, with the former having a hand on the latter’s shoulder comfortingly, and the other elf, who was slinking away more covertly, still seemingly tucked in on himself and sulking as he skulked out of the cafeteria. 

Dreeda turned back to Adrie. “So, yeah… referring back to earlier, I just wanted to say thanks. And sorry about the ‘long-ears’ comment earlier.”

“Yeah, no problem. Wouldn’t exactly want to die by drowning in jello, after all. And as far as I’m concerned, you played yourself with what you said, and even if you didn’t, it’s water under the bridge for all I care.”

With that, Adrie turned on her heel and joined the other students in leaving the area, offering one last friendly wave to the tiefling girl before she picked up her pace and swiftly vanished into the crowd. 

With nothing better to do herself, Dreeda joined the mass of students filing out of the lunchroom.

* * *

“I trust your first day of school went well?”

Gorthalax’s voice didn’t register in Dreeda’s ears as she sat in the passenger’s seat of the car, looking over a list of five names titled “Party M”. 

Angela Troy, the quiet raven-girl druid that she had become acquainted with throughout the day, who had walked past the school doors at the end of that first day all by herself for some reason- she had simply walked on into the distance with no sign of anyone coming to pick her up. Dreeda merely supposed that she was simply one of those students who walked to and from school. 

Adrie Primrose, the flirtatious eladrin that she had first met in the lunchroom. As it turned out, the dragonborn cop from earlier was apparently someone close to Adrie- she could only assume her mother- as Adrie happily bounded over to a police cruiser parked at the front of the school driven by the school liaison herself, popping open the passenger’s side and slipping in like it was no big deal before the car drove off with her in it. 

Corian Amakiir, the (presumably) high elf whose exquisite state of dress had hardly matched his capability, at least in a fight- though perhaps now, his clothes were a bit more reflective of his competence in their damaged condition. The guy was still moping after his utter failure of a first day, and Dreeda had needed to suppress a laugh when she saw who she could only guess was his father step out of the car, a disbelieving look on his face as he eyed Corian and the state of his clothes- though she had to admit, she felt bad about doing so when she caught sight of the younger elf’s own ashamed expression.

David Barkrock, the firbolg brawler with a soft center that she had talked to once or twice in the day, and from what she saw had actually done the most damage against the jello creatures when they were attacking. The son of the school’s guidance counselor, she was able to catch the half-orc’s face behind the forwardmost window of the car as he pulled in, and the tallest kid in their party let himself into the car with a soft smile on his face.

And then finally, her. One big, happy family.

Ironically, in school you were expected to prioritize attending your classes as individuals- rather, the expectations were that you interacted with your party as often as you could outside of school; regarding actual adventuring, the school treated adventures that were not undertaken with one’s own free time like any other school would treat a field trip. 

Stuck onto the bottom of the letter via adhesive was her “Adventurer’s Permit”, a special card that all Aguefort students were required to have on them at all times, especially while going on genuine adventures, until they finished school and could receive an official “Adventurer’s License”. Peeling the plastic card away from where it stuck to the paper, Dreeda pondered the picture and descriptive information emblazoned towards the top of the card, before flicking her eyes down to read the fine-print disclaimer below the laundry list of personal information.

_Disclaimer: The Aguefort Adventuring Academy Adventurer’s Permit only offers legal protection regarding partaking in adventuring activities such as murder, theft, generally disturbing the peace and similar criminal offenses while within Solace. You are not entitled to any absolution from a crime committed outside of the country even with the usage of this permit, with certain exceptions._

“Dreeda?”

“What? Sorry, I didn’t hear you, what did you say?”

“I asked about how well the first day of school went.”

“I’d say fairly well, considering we had to fight off animated jello at lunch today and I already have someone who's into me.”

“So just a standard day at Aguefort?”

“I guess so.”

There was a brief silence before Gorthalax spoke up once more, re-instigating conversation with his daughter. 

“You say that someone is into you… what exactly do you mean by that?”

“It’s nothing serious, it’s just some girl who thinks I’m attractive. I honestly think she’s just a coquet- she was kind of into a boy who's going to be in my party as well, so odds are she doesn’t even have a thing for me exclusively. That aside, though, she was actually fairly nice- she healed me after I had gotten a bit roughed up in the jello fight.”

“Okay… is there anything else I should potentially know?”

“I get the feeling that I’ll be seeing her a lot- she’s in my party.”

Gorthalax’s inquiring expression was replaced with one of grim consideration; he was no less ponderous, that much she could tell, but he seemed to be a lot less curious now, and far more wary.

“I see… and might I ask, are you comfortable with this?”

“It’s nothing serious, Dad- she wasn’t even flirting with me, she was just checking me out a couple of times.”

“It’s the exact same principle, Dreeda. I know I probably don’t need to tell you this, but if you aren’t comfortable with how she’s treating you and she doesn’t stop if you tell her to, don’t be afraid to tell me, or the principal, or- ”

“Or anyone else I trust so you guys can go kick her ass, I know.”

“Well… kicking her ass would be a last resort. Not that I’d hesitate to if it would need to go that far. Look, the idea is that you’re one of my two little girls, and I’m not going to tolerate anyone trying to use you or take advantage of either of you like that- Fig can more than handle herself at this point in her life, and I’d still happily beat the shit out of Ayda if it turned out that she was abusing her. Not that I’m suggesting that she would, of course, but the point is that no matter how ‘harmless’ it may seem, your comfort with it still matters- if you’re not okay with it, she needs to respect that, especially if you two are going to be working together frequently. You understand?”

“Yeah.” She simply responded, simply taking the advice for what it was. She knew that her father meant well with his words, and she appreciated the fact that he cared that much- thus, this lecture provoked no buried indignation from her, not like it often would when she was chastised or disciplined. 

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Might I ask who Bill and Ruth are? I already overheard somewhat as it was, so I figured that I might as well know now.”

“Well, I suppose I could tell you who Bill is. Have you heard of Bill Seacaster?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

“Oh.” The statement came with a hint of surprise. “Well, to keep it simple, he was a notorious pirate captain who died when Kalvaxus was trying to return to power. I didn’t really get to know him personally until he officially took the Nine Hells from Asmodeus.”

Dreeda’s eyes widened in surprise. She had read about the head archdevil (and alleged lesser god) of Baator, as well as how powerful and cunning he was; while her family had elected to keep Dreeda out of as many affairs related to the Lower Planes as possible and thus rarely spoke about such topics around the house, there were still the occasional mentions, mainly of named figures, spoken about, mainly when her father was taking calls. Her natural curiosity, combined with her own innately magical nature, only spurred her thirst for knowledge in that regard; when she was younger, she had loved to frequent libraries and check out books from there to read, and whenever the books at Skull Cleaver or Oakshield failed to satisfy that itch for arcane and planar lore in the back of her mind, what with various facts being omitted or whitewashed for the sake of “kid-friendliness”, she took to the Elmville Public Library to seek out results with less censorship.

For what it was worth, the succubus pictures she frequently happened upon helped her figure out that she was gay. _Hot damn._

Her face heating up at the memories (and silently thanking her bright red complexion for not giving her away), she elected to drown those memories out in favor of focusing back on the topic of discussion.

“So… this _former mortal_ actually succeeded in killing _the Devil?”_

“Yeah… only Bill and his crew know the full story as to how it went down, and rumor has it that the only one he’s ever told about it was to his son Fabian. My guess, though, is that after Bill pushed through all of the armies and minions standing between him and Asmodeus, Asmodeus found out you can’t exactly bargain with a person who's not interested in a deal in the first place.”

“And… Ruth?”

“Ruth is... a bit more complicated. Ruth’s a whole different kind of denizen of the Lower Planes, and to talk about her would be to bring up some other major players in the scene of Hell.” 

“I have time.”

“Not enough- we’re home.”

Dreeda looked up to see that they had indeed arrived back at Strongtower Luxury Apartments. By her father’s own account, the building had practically been falling to pieces when he had moved in with Sklonda; unless his definition of “falling to pieces” had been greatly exaggerated, however, there was nothing to show for it now. The neon lights lighting up the overhead doors were fully functioning and as bright as they were the day before, and the entire building appeared to be as well maintained as any other apartment complex.

Leaving their car and stepping out into the parking lot, with far fewer cars obscuring their own than there had been earlier that morning, they walked up to the front entrance, entered the building, and then found the stairway that lead up to their apartment, before ascending several floors to reach their apartment. Taking his apartment room key- a simple plastic card- he punched in through the scanner attached to their front door, with the door opening with a small beep. They stepped into their room, and were greeted with the soft but delectable smell of tomato.

“We’re home, Sklonda!” 

Stepping out to where they could view the kitchen, they witnessed a goblin wearing an apron and still in her work clothes at the stovetop, standing on a footstool and using a wooden spoon to stir something up while another covered pot sat beside it, steam rolling up in a thin cloud out of the lid. She turned her head to them, a smile on her face; their were a couple of streaks of silver in her green hair and mild wrinkles that spoke of her age, but besides that she practically looked as if she had on her wedding with Gorthalax- something Dreeda only knew of due to photos capturing the occasion around the house. 

“Welcome back, you two.” She said, the warmth of her voice provoking a soft smile of Dreeda’s own. “Dinner will be ready in not too long.” 

Gorthalax came over to where his wife was cooking, before getting down on one knee and giving Sklonda a short, sweet kiss. “Thanks for making dinner, honey.”

“Oh, sure thing. It was no big deal.”

The affectionate interaction only further brightened Dreeda’s expression, her smile breaking out even wider.

“How was your first day at school, Dreeda?”

“It went well. It was normal enough, for an adventuring school.”

“I’m trusting you didn’t blow-torch dick pictures to the bathroom stalls?” Sklonda continued, her voice taking on both disciplinary and playful inflections and coaxing a chuckle out of Gorthalax.

“Yeah… Dad talked to me about that. Don’t worry, I haven’t.”

“Well, I certainly appreciate that you listened to me.”

“Yet.”

“*sigh* At the very least, let’s try to not make it a habit, Dreeda." 

With that, Dreeda began walking back to her room, with Sklonda giving out with another warning that dinner would be ready in a couple of minutes, and Dreeda responding back with a behind-the-shoulder “I know!” as she entered her room, sat down on her bed, unzipped her backpack to grab her crystal, and set the still-unzipped bag against her nightstand… only for the added weight of her book to tip it over, causing the bag’s contents to spill forward. The book in particular decided to inconveniently split open and spread itself out against the carpet.

_‘Well, crap.’_

Setting her crystal aside and reaching for the book, she plucked it off of the floor and kept it open at the pages it had burst open on, looking for anywhere the pages may have scrunched up or creased. To her relief, there was no such damage. She was about to close the book again when the illustration caught her eye.

It was a creature that basically looked like a minotaur on meth. With mangy black fur, a head with flesh rotted practically to the bone and thin, sharp teeth, black voids for eyes filled only by tiny pinpricks of light, a crown of horns that twisted outwards into sets of hellish antlers, and a giant bladed weapon in one hand, Dreeda’s eyes flicked to the next page, and she began to read the creature’s entry.

_Baphomet, Some Horny Asshole_

_While abnormally cunning for a demon, Baphomet is still a creature of savagery and evil at his core, and is more than eager to rip the flesh off of someone who becomes his prey. Nonetheless, he still manages to blend his intelligence and bloodlust in a way that grants him the same mindset as a predator on the hunt, and encourages his worshippers to apply that same cold, detached, unempathetic efficiency in those that they themselves hunt. As a sadistic creature, he enjoys the thrill of the hunt purely for its own sake and enjoys the slow destruction of hope that comes with knowing you cannot escape your pursuer, unlike his rival Yeenoghu, who focuses on encouraging mindless, mob mentality violence and sowing discord through public acts of terror._

“Dreeda! Soup’s on!”

“Coming!”

Setting the book down, still opened on the pages explaining this “demon lord”, Dreeda stepped out of her room and made her way to the dinner table, prepared to indulge in a hearty meal of spaghetti and meatballs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, it feels good releasing something again! With school and everything, this should at least serve as a pick-me-up.
> 
> So we have a bit more character interaction and actual fights, which I hope I did well- especially the fights. If anyone has an issues with them, such as them being too long, I'm more than open to constructive criticism. 
> 
> Speaking of constructive criticism, don't be afraid to inform me if I'm mucking up the canon character's personalities at all. This was my first time writing for a lot of them.
> 
> Well, until the next chapter, I suppose! Until then, see ya!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys. I'm back, after forever.
> 
> Before anything else, I just wanted to say three things.
> 
> One- and this is mainly for those who have read, and are still waiting for, my other stories- I'm not going to be making any guarantees that I'll finish this the entire way. I'll do my best, and I really want to complete this, but I'm not going to keep giving out false promises. You guys deserve better than that.
> 
> Second, I know this chapter may have possibly seemed like somewhat of an exposition/information dump, but I hope it piqued your interest until then. Trust me, I hope as much as you probably do that things are gonna get more interesting real soon- and if it helps, each chapter will be individually focused on a single character, so you'll likely never see a situation like this again except in special situations- like, say, combat, although even that may be centralized in perspective to one character.
> 
> Third, if I wrote any of the canon characters wrong, don't hesitate to critique me. My biggest concern was seeing if I wrote Gorthalax right; Ragh, I felt, was a little bit easier, since I kind of felt like the time he spent with the Bad Kids and twenty-six years to get himself together otherwise would have helped with his temperament. Worry not, though- not all of the old Ragh is gone, as you may find in future chapters.
> 
> Until then, hopefully I'll get the first chapter done soon. Until then, I'm out!


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